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Thomas  Corwin  Iliff 


Apostle  of  Home  Missions 
in   the    Rocky   Mountains 


BY 
JAMES  DAVID   GILLILAN 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 
NEW  YOH£  CINCINNATI 


p«/wV7^ 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
JAMES  DAVID  GILLILAN 


TO 
THE  MINISTRY  AND  THE  MEMBERSHIP 
OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH. 
SPECIALLY  OF  THE  GREAT  WEST;  WHERE, 
BECAUSE  OF  HIS  FERVENT  SPIRIT  AND 
FERVID  ELOQUENCE,  RELIGION  IS 
STRONGER,  PATRIOTISM  PURER,  AND 
FELLOWSHIP  HOLIER,  IN  ALL  THE  REGION 
FROM  CANADA  TO  MEXICO  AND  FROM 
THE  FATHER  OF  WATERS  TO  THE  PEACE- 
FUL SEA. 

AND 
TO   THE   RAPIDLY   DIMINISHING    GRAND 
ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC,  HIS  COMRADES 
AND  FELLOWS  OF  THE  STORMIER  DAYS. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 


Introduction 11 

Author's  Preface 15 

I.  Biographical 19 

II.  Early  Life 27 

III.  Lure  of  Gold 37 

IV.  The  Honest  Indian 49 

V.  The  Veteran  of  the  United  States 

Army  Reenlists 57 

VI.  Preachers  as  Statesmen 65 

VII.  Lecture — Mormonism,  a  Menace  to 

the  Nation 71 

VIII.  Address  at  Dedication  of  Grand  Army 

Monument 97 

EX.  Contemporaries  and  Coworkers 135 

X.  Characteristics 149 

XI.  Memorial  Services 165 

Old  Glory  in  France 184 

Appendices 187 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Thomas  Corwin  Iliff Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Iliff  Church,  Perry  County,  Ohio 33 

The  "Heavenly  Twins" 55 

The  "Young  Soldier" 61 

Facsimile  of  People's  Ticket 81 


INTRODUCTION 

After  the  bloody  uprising  of  the  Black- 
feet  Indians  in  the  70's  General  James  A. 
Garfield,  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs, 
accompanied  by  Secretary  Belknap,  of 
President  Grant's  Cabinet,  went  into  the 
wilds  of  Montana  for  the  purpose  of  making 
a  treaty  with  them. 

While  investigating  the  cause  of  this  dis- 
turbance General  Garfield  visited  Missoula 
and  hunted  up  the  Rev.  T.  C.  Iliff,  the 
Methodist  missionary  for  that  remote 
region.  He  found  the  preacher  in  the  gar- 
den of  the  little  parsonage  looking  after  his 
flowers. 

"I  am  General  Garfield  of  the  United 
States  Army,"  said  the  soldier,  "and  I  am 
looking  for  a  fighting  parson  by  the  name 
of  Iliff.  Can  you  tell  me  where  I  can  find 
him?" 

"My  name  is  Iliff  and  I  am  a  minister," 
was  the  parson's  ready  reply;  and  having 
11 


12  INTRODUCTION 

said  this  he  invited  the  officer  into  his  hos- 
pitable home.  The  General  remained  there 
all  the  afternoon  and  obtained  the  settlers' 
version  of  the  recent  trouble  they  had  had 
with  the  Indians. 

As  he  went  away  he  jocularly  remarked, 
"I  know  the  head  of  your  Missionary  So- 
ciety in  New  York,  and  when  I  see  him  I 
shall  tell  him  that  I  found  his  missionary  in 
Montana  drilling  a  company  of  soldiers  of 
which  he  himself  is  lieutenant." 

"Kindly  tell  him  also,  General,"  said  Mr. 
IlifT,  "that  in  order  to  save  the  souls  of  men 
I  must  first  save  their  lives.  ,You  can  say 
to  him  too  that  every  man  in  the  company 
attends  church  regularly,  and  that  they  did 
not  do  so  until  I  had  disciplined  them  as 
soldiers." 

A  Montana  newspaper  had  this  note, 
which  explains  the  foregoing  more  fully,  a 
posthumous  statement: 

"Like  Saul  of  Tarsus,  Dr.  Iliff  was  a 
fighting  divine.  In  times  of  peace  he 
preached  the  gospel  to  the  Argonauts  and 
the  adventurers  who  came  early  to  Mon- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

tana;  in  times  of  war,  when  the  redskins 
threatened  his  flock,  he  girded  the  sword  of 
the  soldier  about  his  loins  and  went  out  to 
do  battle. 

"Before  the  call  to  the  ministry  came  to 
him  he  had  been  a  soldier  and  fought  through 
the  Civil  War.  So  when  the  Blackfeet  re- 
belled against  the  dictates  of  the  Federal 
government  and  sent  their  'braves'  on  the 
warpath,  threatening  the  little  community 
of  Missoula,  the  minister  became  the  soldier 
again.  He  organized  and  drilled  a  company 
so  as  to  be  in  readiness." 

The  very  name  "Utah"  had  in  those  days 
a  far-away  sound;  about  it  clung  an  aroma 
of  romance  and  adventure  such  as  Moore 
sets  forth  in  "Lalla  Rookh."  The  Oriental 
appeared  transplanted  in  the  Occident.  The 
mosque  was  represented  in  the  tabernacle; 
the  seraglio  with  its  harems  joined  close  up 
to  the  Temple  block.  Brigham  Young  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  his  acknowledged 
superior  and  contemporary,  Joseph  Smith, 
and  sheltered  himself  and  his  polygamous 
deeds  behind  the  Prophet's  revelations. 


14  INTRODUCTION 

In  humble  token  of  this  superiority  the 
later  "Prophet,  Seer,  and  Revelator,"  took 
in  marriage  some  of  the  former  prophet's 
women,  while  many  of  his  official  companions 
and  others  were  likewise  well  provided  with 
a  plurality  of  wives. 

This  was  deemed  un-American  by  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  and  steps  were 
taken  to  force  a  complete  cessation  of  the 
widely  spreading  practice.  Divers  laws 
were  enacted  by  the  national  Congress,  the 
most  notable  at  that  time  being  the  drastic 
and  far-reaching  Edmunds-Tucker  Bill  of 
1882.  This  made  it  a  misdemeanor  to  hold 
out  to  the  world  more  than  one  woman  as 
a  wife,  and  was  punishable  with  both  fine 
and  imprisonment. 

It  was  at  this  strategic  date  that  Mr.  IlifT 
became  the  superintendent  of  the  Utah  Mis- 
sion. This  field  embraced  all  of  the  Terri- 
tory of  Utah  and  extended  northward  as 
far  as  the  forty-second  parallel  excepting 
Fort  Hall  Indian  Reservation,  and  included 
Blackfoot  and  Pocatello  in  Idaho. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

For  thirty-five  years,  eventful  in  the 
rapid  progress  and  permanent  development 
of  the  inter-Rocky  Mountain  regions  and 
resources,  it  was  my  privilege  to  be  in- 
timately associated  with  the  subject  of  these 
pages.  In  1883  in  answer  to  his  call  I  left 
the  work  of  the  school  teacher  in  Ohio  and 
for  fifteen  of  the  following  years  collabo- 
rated most  intimately  with  him  in  the  varied 
tasks  under  the  direction  of  the  Board  of 
Home  Missions  and  Church  Extension.  It 
proved  to  be  the  most  strenuous  years  pos- 
sible for  times  of  peace  because  of  the  diffi- 
culties the  government  had  in  effecting 
amicable  relations  between  itself  and  the 
people  of  Utah. 

With  this  doughty  superintendent  from 
the  Buckeye  State  it  was  my  exalted  privi- 
lege to  ride  and  otherwise  to  travel  by  al- 
most every  conceivable  conveyance  up  and 
down  the  hills  of  the  Utah  Mission,  through 
15 


16  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

the  velvety  valleys  and  into  and  out  of  the 
craggy  canyons  hunting  the  miners,  farm- 
ers, and  isolated  settlers,  all  the  while  try- 
ing to  do  the  work  of  good  shepherds  of 
Jesus  Christ.  We  camped,  ate,  slept; 
talked,  rejoiced,  sympathized;  wept, 
laughed,  and  shouted  together  in  the  ebul- 
lient joy  of  the  Lord  and  in  the  exuberance 
of  youth  and  mature  manhood. 

By  any  standard  of  measurement  he  was 
never  known  to  assume  other  than  equal 
rank  among  the  humblest  of  his  company. 
No  weather  was  too  severe,  no  storm  too 
tumultuous,  no  mode  of  travel  too  strenuous 
to  swerve  him  and  his  men  from  these 
pioneer  trips. 

His  relation  to  the  West  is  shown  in  the 
chapter  on  "Lure  of  Gold,"  the  vital  impact 
he  made  on  the  un-American  doctrine  and 
practice  of  polygamy  is  seen  in  the  lecture  on 
"Mormonism,  a  Menace  to  the  Nation," 
which  was  delivered  with  tremendous  power 
from  shore  to  shore  of  the  nation;  and  his 
fervor  as  a  patriot  after  the  Civil  War  is 
exhibited  in  the  masterly  address  at  the  dedi- 


AUTHORS  PREFACE  17 

cation  of  the  Grand  Army  Monument  in 
Salt  Lake  City.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that 
Judge  Goodwin,  editor  of  the  Salt  Lake 
Tribune,  and  a  most  brilliant  author,  said 
to  him,  "IlirT,  it  is  time  for  you  to  die  now 
while  your  fame  is  secure." 


I 

BIOGRAPHICAL 


CHAPTER  I 
BIOGRAPHICAL 

Thomas  Corwin  Iliff  was  born  at 
McLuney,  Perry  County,  Ohio,  October  26, 
1845,  son  of  Wesley  and  Harriett  Iliff; 
grandson  of  John  Iliff  and  Anna  Iliff,  and 
of  Noah  Teal  and  Anna  Teal,  of  the  same 
locality.  On  the  paternal  side  he  was  of  Ger- 
man descent;  his  earliest  American  ancestor 
emigrated  from  England  to  America  in  1760 
and  settled  at  Newton,  New  Jersey.  On  his 
mother's  side  he  was  of  Irish  extraction.  His 
father,  who  was  born  in  1814,  and  died  in 
1883,  was  a  native  of  Pennsylvania;  his 
mother,  born  in  1818,  and  died  in  1872,  was 
a  native  of  Ohio.  His  parents  were  married 
in  Perry  County,  Ohio,  in  1836,  and  Thomas 
Corwin  was  the  fourth  child  and  third  son 
of  a  family  of  seven  children  consisting  of 
five  sons  and  two  daughters. 

His  early  education  was  received  at  the 
21 


22      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

district  school  of  his  native  home.  Four 
months  of  the  year  were  devoted  to  school 
work  and  the  remaining  eight  months  were 
spent  at  work  on  the  farm.  His  education 
was  interrupted,  however,  by  the  Civil  War, 
and  at  sixteen  he  enlisted  as  a  private.  He 
took  part  in  sixty  engagements,  was  with 
Sherman  in  the  march  to  the  sea,  through  the 
Carolinas,  and  was  mustered  out  three 
months  after  Lee  surrendered  to  Grant  at 
Appomattox,  in  1865. 

On  his  return  home  he  at  once  entered  the 
Ohio  University,  taking  the  classical  course, 
and  was  graduated  in  1870.  He  was  re- 
ceived into  the  Ohio  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Church  the  same  year  and  sent 
as  junior  preacher  to  the  Coolville  Circuit, 
with  twelve  preaching  places. 

Three  months  later  he  was  appointed  by 
Bishop  Clark  as  missionary  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  located  at  Missoula,  Mon- 
tana, then  a  town  of  one  hundred  white  peo- 
ple, with  thousands  of  Indians  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity.  Two  thousand  miles  of 
the  trip  was  made  by  railroad  and  eight  hun- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  23 

dred  miles  by  stage.  With  his  own  hands, 
and  money  saved  from  his  salary,  together 
with  what  he  was  able  to  secure  from  the 
people,  and  five  hundred  dollars  from  the 
Board  of  Church  Extension,  he  built  the 
first  Protestant  church  between  Helena, 
Montana,  and  Walla  Walla,  Washington. 

In  1880-81  he  traveled  extensively 
throughout  Europe,  the  Holy  Land,  and 
Egypt.  For  a  period  of  twenty-five  years, 
from  1875  to  1901,  Dr.  IlifT  was  in  charge 
of  the  Methodist  missions  in  Utah.  He 
preached  in  nearly  every  Methodist  church 
throughout  Utah,  Idaho,  and  Montana, 
built  and  dedicated  many  of  them,  and  par- 
ticipated in  all  the  battles  for  the  supremacy 
of  the  American  home,  public  school,  and 
patriotism,  from  the  days  of  Brigham 
Young,  the  great  leader,  to  Joseph  F. 
Smith,  the  late  prophet  of  the  Mormon 
Church. 

Dr.  Iliff  was  chairman  of  the  allied  Chris- 
tian and  American  forces  of  Utah,  success- 
fully opposing  the  seating  of  Brigham  H. 
Roberts,      polygamous      congressman-elect 


24      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

from  Utah,  in  1899.  During  that  campaign 
he  went  into  thirty  States  of  the  Union,  and 
his  addresses  before  Conferences  and  public 
assemblies  had  much  to  do  with  the  uprising 
of  the  American  people.  He  met  Mr. 
Roberts  at  the  door  of  the  national  Con- 
gress and  challenged  his  right  to  admission, 
not  because  Mr.  Roberts  was  a  Mormon  but 
because  he  was  a  polygamist.  He  procured 
witnesses  from  Utah,  and  was  the  acknowl- 
edged leader  in  handling  the  case  before  the 
Congressional  Committee. 

Dr.  Iliff  was  assistant  secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Home  Missions  and  Church  Ex- 
tension, Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  from 
1901  to  1909,  during  which  time  he  visited 
every  State  and  Territory  in  the  interest  of 
this  society,  traveling  forty  thousand  miles 
annually,  a  total  of  over  three  hundred  thou- 
sand miles. 

The  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divin- 
ity was  conferred  upon  him  by  Ohio  and 
De  Pauw  Universities  in  1887,  on  the  same 
day. 

He  married,  at  Belpre,  Ohio,  March  22, 


BIOGRAPHICAL  25 

1871,  Mary  A.,  daughter  of  Richard  and 
Sarah  Robinson.  Four  children  of  the 
union  are  living — one  son  and  three  daugh- 
ters, another  three  dying  in  infancy.  Mrs. 
Iliff  accompanied  her  husband  on  his  first 
missionary  trip  to  the  Far  West,  and  was  of 
great  service  to  him  in  his  work  for  forty- 
seven  years. 

Dr.  Iliff  was  prominent  in  Grand  Army 
affairs,  having  been  department  commander 
of  Utah,  and  chaplain-in-chief  of  the  na- 
tional organization.  His  lecture  "The 
Sunny  Side  of  Soldier  Life — What  an  Ohio 
Cavalry  Boy  Saw  in  the  Army,"  has  been 
given  in  all  sections  of  the  country.  The 
late  Bishop  McCabe  declared,  "It  is  the  best 
of  its  kind."  He  was  also  an  up-to-date  au- 
thority on  the  Mormon  question.  His  lec- 
ture "Mormonism  Versus  Americanism" 
stirred  the  nation  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific. 

For  a  number  of  years  prior  to  his  death 
Dr.  Iliff  lived  at  University  Park,  Denver, 
and  took  a  special  interest  in  the  Iliff  School 
of   Theology   located   there.     During  this 


26      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

period  his  time  was  largely  given  to  lectur- 
ing and  preaching  throughout  the  land  and 
in  dedicating  churches  and  in  raising  money 
for  church  purposes. 

In  1880  the  Utah  Conference  honored  it- 
self by  sending  Thomas  Corwin  IlifT  its  min- 
isterial delegate  to  the  General  Conference 
which  met  that  year  in  Cincinnati. 

Thus  he  continued  in  the  activities  of  the 
church,  standing  at  all  times  in  positions  of 
trust  and  honor,  till  the  time  of  his  final 
release,  which  came  in  1918,  when  he  had 
reached  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-two. 

His  niche  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  civiliz- 
ing agencies  will  not  be  filled,  because  there 
is  no  need  of  another  of  his  kind.  There 
was  a  distinct  place  for  the  sort  of  work  he 
did ;  he  was  the  man  to  do  it.    He  did  it  well. 


II 

EARLY  LIFE 


Blessings  on  thee,  little  man, 
Barefoot  boy,  with  cheek  of  tan! 
With  thy  turned-up  pantaloons, 
And  thy  merry  whistled  tunes ; 
With  thy  red  lip,  redder  still 
Kissed  by  strawberries  on  the  hill; 
With  the  sunshine  on  thy  face, 
Through  thy  torn  brim's  jaunty  grace; 
From  my  heart  I  give  thee  joy — 
I  was  once  a  barefoot  boy! 
Prince  thou  art — the  grown-up  man 
Only  is  republican. 

—Whittier,  "Barefoot  Boy." 

.  .  .  did  the  nightly  chores — 
Brought  in  the  wood  from  out  of  doors, 
Littered  the  stalls,  and  from  the  mows 
Raked  down  the  herd's-grass  for  the  cows ; 
Heard  the  horse  whinneying  for  his  corn ; 
And,  sharply  clashing  horn  on  horn, 
Impatient  down  the  stanchion  rows 
The  cattle  shake  their  walnut  bows. 

— Ibid.,  "Snowbound" 


CHAPTER  II 

EARLY  LIFE 

The  rocky  hills  of  the  eastern  and  the 
southeastern  portion  of  Ohio  are  not  re- 
markable for  fertility  of  soil.  They  are  rich 
in  mineral  deposits  of  iron,  lime,  and  stone- 
coal.  The  steep  escarpments  were  then  and 
are  yet  largely  covered  with  a  native  growth 
of  shrubs  and  briers  producing  various  kinds 
of  edible  berries.  The  wicked  greenbriers, 
whose  tough  vines  and  poisonous  thorns  were 
the  bane  of  the  lad  in  bare  feet ;  the  sassafras 
tree,  whose  root-bark  furnishes  the  tea  for 
all  spring  diseases;  the  hazel-brush,  that 
bears  the  brown  nut  wrapped  in  its  acrid 
and  ruffled  husk;  the  red  service-berry;  the 
wintergreen  (mountain  tea) ;  the  fox  and 
other  wild  grapes  are  specimens  of  the  lesser 
brush  so  common.  It  has  not  been  long  since 
those  same  hills  were  heavy  with  the  greater 
trees — the  oak  of  many  kinds,  chestnut, 
29 


30      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

maple,  different  hickories,  walnut,  and 
beech. 

The  staple  crop  was  corn  which  had  a  good 
growth  on  the  steeps  as  well  as  in  the  nar- 
row valleys.  So  sharp  are  these  slopes  that 
a  special  tool,  the  side-hill  plow,  was  in- 
vented for  their  cultivation.  The  farmer 
being  unable  to  go  round  his  field  in  the 
regulation  manner  of  plowing,  started  at 
the  bottom  and  plowed  to  and  fro,  turning 
his  mold-board  at  each  end  of  the  furrow 
until  he  reached  the  top  of  his  "land." 

In  such  regions  were  born  men  who  made 
history  for  their  State,  their  nation,  or  their 
church.  General  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  General 
Philip  H.  Sheridan,  and  Bishop  S.  M.  Mer- 
rill were  among  this  number.  These  knew 
the  meaning  of  practical  poverty  and  the 
achings  of  him  who  wrung  bread  from  the 
poor  soil  of  the  yellow  hills  where  the  gin- 
seng, the  puccoon,  the  rattle-root,  and  other 
efficacious  herbs  were  to  be  found  in  wild 
profusion;  in  company  with  these  were  the 
pleasant  sweet  anise,  spikenard,  and  similar 
useful  plants. 


EARLY  LIFE  31 

Thomas  Corwin  Iliff  was  born  among 
these  hills  and  of  parents  who,  though  poor 
in  purse,  were  rich  in  character.  This  "bare- 
foot boy  with  cheek  of  tan"  knew  the  ex- 
periences of  the  stubbed  toe,  the  stone- 
bruise,  chapped  feet,  the  trailing  dewberry 
vine,  and  the  lurking  bumblebee  nests.  He 
often  had  to  hunt  the  cows  throughout  the 
large,  unfenced  pastures  and  on  many  a 
frosty  morning  was  glad  to  stand  for  a  few 
minutes  in  the  spot  warmed  by  the  sleeping 
cattle  in  order  to  thaw  out  his  beet-red  feet. 

Much  of  the  land  was  then  uncleared  of 
its  primeval  forests,  and  these  boundless 
woods  abounded  in  game.  Deer  and  the 
wild  turkey  were  common;  the  wild  pigeons 
had  their  roosts  among  the  giant  trees  in 
such  numbers  that  the  branches  were  often 
shattered  by  their  sheer  weight. 

So  abundant  were  these  woods  that  the 
farmers  were  continually  compelled  to  clear 
out  new  fields.  Some  of  the  logs  were  made 
into  fence-rails  and  the  remainder  burned 
in  great  log-heaps.  The  rails  were  made 
by  splitting  with  maul,  iron  wedge,  and  dog- 


32      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

wood  glut;  the  walnut,  the  oak,  and  the 
chestnut  furnished  the  most  of  such  rail 
material  in  the  ear  her  years.  For  the  mak- 
ing of  these  log-heaps  a  log-rolling  was 
necessary.  A  boy  would  be  sent  to  a  dozen 
farms  pleasantly  to  notify  the  pater  familias 
that  his  "pap"  was  going  to  have  a  "log-roll- 
ing frolic"  on  such  and  such  a  day  and  in- 
vited him  to  "come  over"  and  "bring  his 
hand-spike  along."  Sometimes  the  farm- 
er's wife  would  send  word  to  the  "mater 
familias"  to  "come  over  along,"  although 
this  was  usually  included  in  the  invitation 
given  to  the  head  of  the  house.  By  a  queer 
custom  these  invitations  were  considered  im- 
perative unless  there  were  other  pressing  de- 
mands. It  was  the  "law  of  the  pack,"  a  part 
of  the  unwritten  community  regulation. 

At  these  gatherings  there  were  sparring 
matches  for  the  younger  men;  for  often  at 
the  dinner  hour  there  would  be  wrestling, 
jumping,  and  other  such  homely  sport;  but 
in  the  field  while  they  worked  like  titans  they 
tilted  each  other  in  feats  of  strength  such  as 
lifting  the  massive  logs  on  their  handspikes, 


EARLY  LIFE  33 

straining  themselves  until  the  knotted  cords 
of  their  necks  and  the  abundant  sweat  from 
their  bronzed  faces  proclaimed  the  giants 
had  met. 

Then  the  dinner!  Half  a  dozen  house- 
wives each  widely  known  for  her  culinary- 
skill  had  done  their  best.  There  were  the 
homely  dishes  of  pork  and  beans,  chicken 
and  hominy,  sometimes  venison  and  bear 
meat,  potatoes  and  pot-roasts;  all  kinds  of 
fruit  butters — apple,  peach,  pear;  and 
pastries,  pies,  etc.  Who  could  be  happier 
or  more  healthful  than  these  primitive  peo- 
ple of  the  Buckeye  and  adjoining  States? 
They  all  fared  alike. 

In  the  evening  they  often  had  a  party  of 
some  sort,  and  the  younger  fellows  in  their 
blue  or  brown  jeans  and  flannel  shirts  were 
the  very  finest  lookers  for  the  red-cheeked 
girls  in  linsey-woolsy. 

Other  bees  were  common:  the  rail-maul- 
ing, the  apple-cuttings,  the  sugaring-off,  the 
molasses-making,  as  well  as  the  old- 
fashioned  method  of  doing  the  threshing. 
The  women  had  different  kinds  of  bees :  wool- 


34      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

picking,  quilting,  carpet-rag  sewing,  and 
many  others  common  to  such  society;  for 
they  were  all  queens  of  the  happy  land  where 
there  was  enjoyed  a  perfect  communism  far 
above  any  that  smacks  of  politics.  These 
neighbors  were  truly  keepers  of  each  other 
and  one  another's  interests  in  a  way  not  to 
be  compared  to  any  plan  evolved  by  any 
mechanical  system  as  yet  advertised. 

There  is  a  class  of  teachers  who  declare  in 
general  and  most  vehement  terms  that 
poverty  is  the  main  cause  of  sin,  vice,  and 
crime.  To  the  one-eyed  dreamer  this  seems 
true,  and  he  may  be  honest  in  his  expression 
because  of  his  ignorance ;  but  ignorance  cur- 
able by  careful,  painstaking,  and  unpreju- 
diced observation,  seeking  for  the  whole 
truth,  is  not  long  to  be  called  honesty,  but 
dangerous  prejudice.  Open-eyed  observers 
know  true  religion  and  dire  poverty  can  and 
do  exist  under  the  same  roof  and  in  the  same 
life.  The  rugged,  guttered  gulches  and  the 
briery  fields  of  Ohio  have  not  been  known 
as  the  best  localities  from  which  to  grow 
criminals.    People  more  sturdy  in  religious 


EARLY  LIFE  35 

living  and  moral  character  do  not  exist  than 
they  of  that  portion  of  the  Buckeye  State. 
The  practical  principles  of  Jesus  find  ready 
acceptance  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  these 
"plain  people  of  the  hills." 

Born  within  the  boundaries  of  the  same 
county,  Perry,  both  Iliff  and  Sheridan  had 
in  them  the  metal  and  the  mettle  for  the 
most  rigid  fires  and  truest  development. 
They  did  not  "grasp  the  skirts  of  happy 
chance,"  but  they  did  "breast  the  blows  of 
circumstance." 

Patriotism  of  the  "first  water"  has  ever 
had  a  home  in  the  hill-country  of  every  land. 
Every  nation  has  taken  lessons  from  the 
Swiss.  Poverty,  patriotism,  and  righteous- 
ness are  an  inseparable  triad.  These  too 
compose  the  foundations  of  true  ambition. 

Then,  as  now,  the  "woods  were  full"  of 
the  appointments  of  the  itinerating  Meth- 
odist preacher  who  counted  it  a  year  lost 
and  who  received  a  reprimand  of  some  sort 
at  Conference  if  he  had  not  held  successful 
revival  meetings  on  their  huge  circuits.  In 
the  little  old  Iliff  Chapel,  whose  modest  sue- 


36     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

cessor  is  pictured  on  another  page,  Tommy 
was  converted  and  at  the  age  of  sixteen  was 
a  class-leader. 

Thus  it  was  not  by  accident  that  Ohio 
produced  such  generals  as  Grant,  Sherman, 
Sheridan ;  such  statesmen  as  John  Sherman, 
Garfield,  McKinley;  such  a  litterateur  as 
W.  D.  Howells;  such  churchmen  as  Merrill, 
McCabe,  Moore,  Cranston,  and  many  con- 
temporaries. Once  Mr.  McKinley  was  asked 
why  Ohio  had  so  many  men  capable  of  filling 
any  office  or  position  on  earth;  he  did  not 
modestly  parry  the  question,  but  said:  "It 
is  because  of  the  many  small  colleges  Ohio 
has." 

In  such  surroundings,  breathing  the  deep- 
est draughts  of  physical,  mental,  and  spirit- 
ual purity,  our  friend  lived  till  he  was  called 
to  the  colors  by  the  Civil  War  and  served 
to  its  close. 


Ill 

LURE  OF  GOLD 


Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 
As  the  swift  seasons  roll ! 
Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 
Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 

Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting 
sea. 

— Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 


CHAPTER  III 
LURE  OF  GOLD 

The  lure  of  gold  and  the  lure  of  the  home 
were  among  the  very  earliest  motives  and 
sentiments  causing  the  permanent  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Great  West.  Adventure  pure 
and  simple  was  another  mighty  factor,  but 
it  brings  no  permanency. 

The  Rocky  Mountain  row  of  bristling 
giants  ranging  themselves  formidably  are 
the  "ancient,  free,  and  accepted"  guardians 
of  wealth  incalculable,  and  are  popularly 
known  as  "Uncle  Sam's  strong  box."  Those 
"hoary  peaks  that  proudly  prop  the  skies" 
are  stubborn  arms  of  love  which  embrace, 
uphold,  and  maintain  the  treasures  of  metals 
galore;  the  soil-making  materials  gradu- 
ally and  steadily  being  triturated  from  the 
perishable  cliffs  through  the  action  of  the 
ceaseless  and  regular  cataclysms  of  the  fine- 
grinding  mills  of  nature;  they  hold  in  their 
39 


40     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

frost-dammed  arms,  reservoirs  not  made 
with  hands,  the  innumerable  fountains  to 
feed  the  Missouris,  the  Colorados,  the  Co- 
lumbias,  and  the  other  carriers  of  fresh  water 
to  the  thirsty  salt-sated  oceans.  Besides  these 
good  offices  the  lordly  hills  stand  uncon- 
quered  warders,  pushing  back  the  crazy 
cyclone  that  would  invade  our  intra-mural 
valleys;  shunting  aside  the  uncongenial 
norther,  which,  to  find  room  for  its  ugli- 
ness, must  seek  Texas,  Kansas,  or  some 
other  open  region;  forbidding  the  entrance 
desired  by  the  ninety-mile  gale  that  some- 
times attempts  to  sweep  over  the  Cascades, 
but  which  has  to  die,  beaten  to  death,  on  their 
westward  slopes. 

The  love  of  gold  lured  men  westward  into 
the  hard-hearted  hills.    Hood  has  it: 

"Gold,  gold,  gold,  gold; 
Heavy  to  get  and  hard  to  hold." 

Pollock  says: 

"Gold,  many  hunted,  sweat,  and  bled  for  gold ; 
Waked  all  the  night  and  labored  all  the  day. 


LURE  OF  GOLD  41 

A  dust  dug  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
Which  being  cast  into  the  fire,  came  out 
A  shining  thing  that  fools  admired,  and  called 
A  god." 

The  metals  of  these  mighty  hills,  especially- 
gold,  silver,  and  copper,  attracted  the  early 
attention  of  the  prospector,  the  undaunted 
wager  of  battles  on  the  conquerable  yet  in- 
destructible elements.  In  his  thirsty  quest 
for  the  yellow  metal  nothing  ever  turned 
him  back,  and  only  death  could  stop  him. 
Fire  and  flood,  cold  and  distance  were  the 
opposers  that  made  the  heart  beat  more  de- 
terminedly, but  had  no  deterrent  effect. 
Arizona  deserts  and  Death  Valley;  the 
Klondike  and  Dawson  City ;  the  Yukon  and 
Nome ;  placers  in  frozen  tundras  and  quartz 
from  the  mountain  drift  were  all  alike  to 
him.    The  aim  was  gold.    The  end  was  gold. 

For  gold  with  pack  on  horse,  burro,  or 
dog  (if  not  on  his  own  back) ,  his  gun  in  one 
hand  and  his  life  in  the  other,  he  saw  no 
plains,  or  mountains,  or  Indians,  or  cactus, 
or  cold,  or  distance.  He  went  on  and  on, 
on,  on,  on  till  he  found  it.    There  he  estab- 


42      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

lished  camps  which  grew  sometimes  into  set- 
tlements. The  good  government  sent  his 
irregular  mail  to  him  and  not  only  enlarged 
the  trail  he  had  instinctively  surveyed  with 
his  life,  but  made  it  safe.  Thither  the  minis- 
ter went  because  the  people  were  there;  for 
where  men  and  women  abound  more  or  less 
of  sin  abounds.  The  lure  of  gold  thus  had 
its  part  in  calling  the  pioneer  preacher. 

Lure  of  the  Home 

Man  never  can  be  considered  complete 
until  he  has  a  home.  The  nucleus  of  the 
home  is  the  sensible  man  married  to  the  same 
sort  of  woman;  a  lover  loving  a  lovable  wife. 
The  homeless  man  is  a  rolling  stone,  a 
floater;  flotsam  sooner  or  later  to  become 
jetsam.  He  is  often  almost  a  nameless 
entity.  The  safest,  serenest,  most  soul- 
satisfying  spot  known  on  earth  is  the  home, 
the  place  nearest  heaven. 

The  overcrowded  centers  everywhere  are 
merely  multiplying  agencies  scattering  their 
expressed  and  super  abounding  units  like 
spores  to  float  finally  to  some  suitable  an- 


LURE  OF  GOLD  43 

chorage  elsewhere.  Thus  new  homes  are 
founded,  new  centers  formed,  new  commu- 
nities fostered. 

The  price  man  has  paid  for  his  home  is 
absolutely  incalculable.  He  has  paid  for  it 
with  his  life  at  the  hand  of  the  lurking  sav- 
age; sometimes  it  was  with  the  life  of  his 
wife  and  children  in  the  same  manner,  as 
also  in  the  dangers  incident  on  travel  in  new 
lands.  He  has  paid  for  it  in  years  of  toil 
and  disappointment;  in  poverty  and  tears; 
in  battles  with  new  climates,  wild  beasts,  and 
wilder  men.  These  were  only  second  pay- 
ments, however.  The  first  heart-breaking 
payment  was  made  when  loved  ones  were  left 
behind,  holy  hearthstones  abandoned,  sacred 
shrines  forsaken;  grass-grown  graves  which 
were  never  to  be  seen  again.  These  are  par- 
tial payments,  although  first  ones.  In  the 
earlier  days  few,  if  any,  pioneers  expected 
ever  to  see  the  older  home  again.  They  gave 
all  the  old  for  the  new. 

Lure  of  Souls 
The  home-makers  had  been  trekking  into 


44      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Idaho,  Utah,  Montana,  and  everywhere 
among  the  Western  uplands.  The  intensely- 
fertile  valleys  were  opening  their  pent-up 
treasures  to  the  farmer  under  his  magic 
wand,  the  plow.  One  point  in  Idaho  was 
far,  far  away  from  the  nearest  railway ;  and 
this  was  the  twentieth  century. 

The  Conference  had  appointed  Father 
Hawkins,  a  man  just  past  the  prime  of  his 
able  life,  to  be  trail-breaker  to  this  valley. 
There  was  but  one  way  whereby  this  new  cir- 
cuit of  immensity  could  be  reached ;  that  was 
by  team  and  wagon.  His  wife  and  daughter 
assisted  in  the  final  preparation,  and  these 
two  women  had  charge  of  one  of  the  two  big 
wagons ;  the  minister  cared  for  the  other. 

Idyllic  Idaho  vies  with  ozonic  Oregon  in 
salubrity  of  atmosphere  and  desirable 
autumn  days.  The  month  was  September. 
From  the  fat  valleys  of  the  Snake  and  the 
Boise  they  ascended  the  unbrageous  uplands 
among  the  sweet-scented  firs  and  lordly 
pines.  Days  passed  slowly  as  the  heavy 
vehicles  were  toilsomely  drawn  up  the  roofy 
slopes.     The  evenings  were  Elysian.     The 


LURE  OF  GOLD  45 

deceptive  winds  whispered  the  night's  lul- 
laby of  peace  as  they  sang  the  tired  soul- 
hunters  to  sleep  in  their  sky-covered  beds. 
The  meals  were  cooked  at  the  campfires  and 
needed  no  peptonic  aid  for  digestion.  Such 
a  journey  in  such  a  region  under  so  happy 
surroundings  can  easily  be  made  too  short. 

They  had  reached  the  high  pass  at  the  top 
of  the  last  ridge  of  hills  and  were  preparing 
for  the  angry  descent  toward  their  new  field 
of  labor.  Their  road  was  little  more  than 
a  widened  deer-trail  down  a  granite  ledge 
never  intended  for  human  foot  or  vehicle. 

The  wheels  were  carefully  rough-locked 
(a  log-chain  so  fixed  that  it  would  remain 
between  the  dead  wheel  and  the  earth),  and 
the  careful  father  went  down  with  his  pon- 
derous load;  reaching  the  foot  of  the  most 
dangerous  escarpment,  a  real  precipice,  he 
stopped,  love-held,  to  watch  the  other  team 
safely  down. 

"Be  careful,  mamma,"  he  called. 

"We're  all  right,  father,"  was  the  con- 
fident reply  as  they  scanned  the  steep. 

Just  then  the  deadened  wheel  struck  a 


46      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

bump,  causing  the  other  wheels  to  skid,  and 
even  as  he  looked,  the  wagon  with  its  pre- 
cious contents  tumbled  over  sidewise,  down 
into  a  gulch  filled  with  the  accumulated 
debris  of  many  a  winter — logs,  brush,  and 
rocks. 

Doubtless  thinking  they  were  killed  or 
badly  in jured,  neither  of  which  was  the  fact, 
they  escaping  with  minor  cuts  and  bruises, 
the  pioneer  preacher's  mind  gave  way.  For 
ten  years  he  lingered.  The  last  months  of 
his  life  were  endured  with  very  acute  mental 
and  physical  suffering,  and  much  of  the  time 
force  was  required  to  restrain  his  acts,  al- 
though he  was  harmless  as  to  individuals. 
Often  he  would  be  heard  muttering,  "O, 
that  terrible  mountain!  that  terrible  moun- 
tain!" That  awful  scene  and  moment  of  the 
years  agone  were  indelibly  pictured  on  the 
retina  of  his  memory. 

The  writer  often  visited  him  and  had 
from  his  lips  a  great  testimony  supra- 
naturally  given.  In  the  sufferer's  worst  and 
wildest  delirium  he  would  slip  to  the  side 
of  his  disordered  bed  and  repeat  in  his  ear 


LURE  OF  GOLD  47 

a  rich  promise  from  the  Book  or  repeat  a 
stanza  of  our  great  hymn  collection.  At 
once  he  was  quieted,  and  sane  as  ever  in  his 
long  and  useful  life,  and  for  the  nonce 
rational.  If  it  was  "In  my  Father's  house 
are  many  mansions,"  he  would  at  once  point 
upward  and  say,  "Yes,  there,  there";  or  he 
would  join  in  a  song  of  praise  and  faith. 
Lost  to  the  fleeting  world  and  all  its  vain 
interests,  untouched  and  unreachable  by 
mundane  reasoning,  he  was  at  home  in  things 
spiritual;  he  "was  founded  upon  the  Rock." 

One  day  the  angels  came,  called,  and 
beckoned.  He  understood;  he  looked  up, 
smiled,  and  went. 

The  "lure  of  souls"  had  called  the  church 
to  send  him.  He  went  not  knowing  whither 
or  to  what,  but  it  was  done  most  willingly. 
He  went  faithful  to  death. 

This  member  of  the  Idaho  Conference  is 
a  type. 

It  was  to  those  who  were  thus  lured  into 
the  wondrous  West  that  the  home  mission- 
aries went. 


IV 
AN  HONEST  INDIAN 


Visions  of  glory,  spare  my  aching  sight ! 

— Thomas  Gray, 


CHAPTER  IV 
AN  HONEST  INDIAN 

It  was  during  the  days  of  pioneer  turbu- 
lence, when  the  oncoming  waves  of  white  set- 
tlers were  breaking  with  lashing  fury  on  the 
native  Indians,  that  these  Christian  trail- 
makers  had  experiences  of  most  thrilling  in- 
terest. Brave  men  they  were  who  went  out 
to  meet  and  to  conquer  the  opposing  forces 
whether  in  man  or  nature ;  yet  in  many  ways 
were  the  women  braver,  for  they  had  to  stay 
at  home  not  knowing  at  what  time  or  in 
what  manner  they  might  be  visited  or  at- 
tacked by  the  wondering  and  wandering  red 
man. 

Mrs.  Iliff,  while  retiring  and  unassuming, 
was  nevertheless  as  courageous  as  any  of  the 
fellow  pioneers  among  the  "stern  sex."  She 
relates  the  following  incident  in  their  early 
Montana  experiences  as  one  among  many: 

"It  was  in  the  fall  of  1873,  while  we  were 
51 


52     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

living  in  Bozeman.  The  Nez  Perce  Indians 
were  a  wild,  roving  tribe,  though  not  hostile 
to  the  whites  at  that  time.  It  was  their  habit 
every  summer  to  go  to  the  Yellowstone 
country  to  hunt  buffalo;  and  as  this  region 
was  inhabited  by  the  Sioux  and  looked  upon 
by  them  as  their  exclusive  possession,  any 
invasion  by  the  other  tribes  invariably  re- 
sulted in  conflict  between  them  and  the  ag- 
gressors. The  Nez  Perce  never  took  their 
squaws  into  the  danger  zone  but  scattered 
them  in  and  about  Bozeman  (which  was 
then  but  a  small  village),  safely  quartered 
in  their  tepees.  They  were  habitual  beggars 
and  a  constant  source  of  annoyance  to  the 
few  whites;  almost  every  day  they  came  to 
the  houses  asking  for  coffee,  tea,  'hoggy 
meat,'  'bissykit'  (bread),  and  sometimes 
offering  dirty  buffalo  tongue  in  exchange. 

"On  one  occasion,  Amos,  chief  'medicine 
man'  for  the  tribe,  came  stalking  into  my 
kitchen  (for  the  Indian  never  stops  to 
knock  at  a  door),  bringing  with  him  four  or 
five  dozen  eggs  for  me  to  boil  for  him.  I 
was  a  'tenderfoot'  in  every  sense  of  the  word. 


THE  HONEST  INDIAN        53 

All  in  the  world  I  knew  of  Indians  I  had 
read  in  books,  and  that  only  of  their  sav- 
agery and  thirst  for  blood;  so  because  of 
abject  fear  I  never  denied  an  Indian  his 
request,  and  even  pretended  to  be  more  than 
glad  to  accommodate  the  big  medicine  man 
by  granting  his  simple  request.  I  was 
utterly  alone  that  day. 

"When  he  returned  from  his  hunt  in  the 
fall,  late  toward  winter,  he  lost  no  time  in 
coming  to  the  house.  With  great  appear- 
ance of  honest  pride  he  thrust  his  hand  into 
an  old  dirty  gunny-sack  he  had  and  brought 
out  six  Sioux  scalps,  exclaiming:  'Ugh, 
heap  big  present!  Kill  Sioux,  take  scalp! 
Present!'  He  had  learned  a  few  English 
words,  sufficient  at  least  to  make  himself 
understood.  Of  course  I  could  not  do  other- 
wise than  express  my  delight  (!)  and 
thanks. 

' 'When  it  is  recalled  that  an  Indian's  rank 
depends  upon  the  number  of  scalps  taken 
from  the  enemy  warriors  and  that  they  mean 
more  than  buffalo  robes,  ponies,  or  jewels, 
we  can  appreciate  the  depth  of  gratitude  this 


54      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Chief  Amos  really  expressed  in  offering  that 
unique  gift  in  repay  for  the  small  act  of 
boiling  his  eggs." 

These  scalps  were  made  use  of  in  an  un- 
usual way  afterward. 

Chaplain  McCabe  was  Mrs.  Iliff's  cousin. 
When  he  became  missionary  secretary  he 
found  much  interest  in  the  erection  of  First 
Church  in  Salt  Lake  City,  the  building  that 
was  located  on  Third  South  Street.  For 
years  it  stood  uncompleted  while  many  a 
passer-by  laughed  in  his  sleeve  at  what  he 
thought  was  a  white  elephant  and  a  failure 
of  the  Methodists. 

But  the  valorous  chaplain,  never  defeated 
even  in  Libby  Prison,  knew  the  story  of  his 
cousin  Mary,  then  living  in  Salt  Lake  City, 
and  procuring  those  long-dried  scalps,  he 
made  a  tour  of  the  United  States  pleading 
for  his  cousin-in-law's  Salt  Lake  City 
church;  and  waving  those  ghastly  trophies 
of  the  warpath,  he  told  in  his  own  matchless 
manner  the  story  of  their  obtaining.  "Thus," 
as  Dr.  Iliff  used  to  say,  "Chaplain  McCabe 
waved  these  gruesome  scalps  over  the  heads 


DR.    ILIFF   AND   "BROTHER   VAN," 
So  Well  Known  as  the  "Heavenly  Twins" 


THE  HONEST  INDIAN        55 

of  appreciative  audiences  and  secured  the 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  necessary  to 
finish  that  building,  our  first  church  in  Zion." 
It  was  at  about  this  time  in  their  Montana 
history  they  became  acquainted  with  "Broth- 
er Van,"  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  right  sort 
of  civilizers  on  the  upper  Missouri.  This  is 
the  Rev.  William  W.  Van  Orsdel,  known 
now  from  shore  to  shore  of  our  America,  and 
possessing  friends  in  every  land;  for  he  has 
attended  many  of  the  General  Conferences ; 
in  fact,  all  of  them  since  1876,  as  a  delegate, 
and  is  loved,  honored,  and  renowned.  The 
"Jonathan-and-David  friendship"  and  af- 
fection between  him  and  Dr.  Iliff  was  so 
great  that  they  were  popularly  known  as  the 
"Heavenly  Twins,"  and  at  the  General  Con- 
ference at  Saratoga  Springs  they  were  in 
constant  demand  for  services  of  song  and 
speech.  Brother  Van  could  stir  that  great 
aggregation  of  cosmopolitans  with  song  at 
any  hour  or  in  any  turbulent  juncture  with 
Dr.  Spencer's  "Over  and  over,"  while  Dr. 
IlifT's  stentorian  shout  and  perennial  blaze 
of  spiritual  energy  would  have  the  perturbed 


56     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

host  joining  with  him  in  fervent  tears  and 
hallelujahs. 

These  "Twins"  were  like  the  Siamese 
Chang  and  Eng,  and  very  nearly  insepar- 
able. 


THE  VETERAN  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  ARMY  REENLISTS 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  VETERAN  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  ARMY  REENLISTS 

Young  Iliff  belonged  to  that  manly  band 
of  patriots  who  had  become  "old  soldiers," 
many  of  them  while  yet  in  their  later  'teens, 
and  he  had  the  fortitude  and  the  good  sense 
to  forsake  the  roof-tree  of  his  father  and  go 
West. 

The  experiences  of  the  Civil  War  had 
given  to  the  soldiers  of  both  armies  a  widened 
horizon.  They  were  not  the  men  who  went 
out  to  fight.  There  was  now  for  them  some- 
thing more  than  the  narrow  neighborhood 
of  their  birth;  their  myopic  sight  had  be- 
come telescopic.  At  once  while  animosities 
were  settling;  after  peace  had  come;  after 
those  two  gentlemen,  Lee  and  Grant,  had 
met  at  Appomattox  Courthouse,  many, 
many  of  them  found  their  way  to  the  mighty 
59 


60     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

new  West,  just  then  coming  into  greater 
national  notice.  The  unmeasured  deposits 
of  gold  had  been  well  heralded,  the  new  dis- 
coveries of  silver  and  lead  were  attracting 
the  hungry  eyes  of  a  nation  so  nearly  de- 
pleted of  money  by  the  four-year  war. 
Better  than  all  this  was  the  vast  unexplored 
wealth  of  the  exhaustless  plains  where  as 
yet  roamed  the  myriads  of  bison.  If  good 
for  the  wild  beast,  why  not  good  for  the 
domestic  animal?  Thus  the  lovers  of  stock 
reasoned  and  immediately  began  the  explor- 
ing and  preempting  of  the  limitless  ranges 
for  their  herds  yet  to  be. 

The  soldiers  of  whom  Xenophon  wrote  in 
his  Anabasis  were  never  the  same  men  who 
went  out  to  conquer  the  world.  They  of 
Caesar  became  geographers  and  travelers 
after  the  campaigns  of  Gallia,  Brittania,  and 
Germania.  "Ne  plus  ultra'  had  in  their 
minds  an  application  and  meaning  not  in- 
tended probably  by  him  who  first  uttered 
it;  to  these  men  it  meant,  "Nothing  beyond 
my  power  to  explore  or  discover."  They 
went  everywhere.    They  took  home  knowl- 


HOW  HE  LOOKED  AS  A  SOLDIER 

Sergeant  Thomas  C.  Iliff,  Co.  A,  9th  O.  V.  C. 

Captain  Thomas  J.  Cochran.    Honorably 

Discharged  at  Lexington,  N.  C,  July 

20,    1865.      He   enlisted    October 

15,   1862 


THE  VETERAN  REENLISTS  61 

edge  that  inflamed  the  hearts  as  well  as  the 
minds  of  their  anxious  hearers.  Homer  was 
not  more  a  teacher  than  were  the  sailors  who 
returned  from  the  voyages  of  Columbus, 
Raleigh,  Drake,  or  Amerigo  Vespucci.  The 
traveler  had  conquered.  The  soldiers  and 
the  sailors  were  the  men  who  became  the 
pioneers  of  civilization.  Their  tribes  in- 
crease. 

No  richer  farm  lands  existed  than  the 
prairies  that  spread  toward  the  land  of  the 
setting  sun,  and  the  grazer  and  the  farmer 
vied  in  friendly  manner  in  the  wonderfully 
advantageous  development  of  these  opulent 
opportunities. 

An  art  new  for  the  Americans  was  yet  to 
be  learned.  That  art,  little  known  outside 
of  Egypt,  China,  and  some  other  Levantine 
lands,  had  been  used  by  our  prehistoric  cliff- 
dwellers  ;  it  was  the  art  of  irrigation.  Many 
a  lazy  river  indolently  and  leisurely  follow- 
ing its  own  sweet  will  down  to  the  sea  was  to 
be  lassoed,  corraled,  harnessed,  and  tamed, 
and  made  to  work  on  great  areas  that  had 
been  parched  and  shriveled  by  an  eternity 


62      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

of  thirst.  The  vast  tracts  marked  in  the 
geographies  of  the  schooldays  of  these  sol- 
diers "The  Great  American  Desert"  were 
to  be  transformed  to  titanic  fields  of  Nilotic 
richness. 

The  old  soldier  did  these  things  all  and 
many  more.  Instead  of  becoming  a  menace 
to  America,  as  prophesied  by  European 
crowned  heads  and  their  hangers-on,  these 
men,  if  of  North  or  South,  who  fought  not 
for  glory  but  for  liberty  and  principle,  set 
to  work  at  once  to  show  the  world  the  mean- 
ing of  enfranchised  manhood.  The  world 
looked  on  amazed ;  it  became  instructed,  and 
is  now  shoulder  to  shoulder  doing  its  best 
to  create  for  all  lands  the  ideals  we  have  so 
long  held  for  ourselves. 

The  old  soldier  became  the  miner,  the 
cattle-raiser,  the  farmer,  the  school-teacher, 
the  minister,  the  business  man,  the  railway 
constructor,  the  thinker,  the  prophet;  in 
short,  he  leaped  at  once  into  the  active  heart 
of  progressive  and  constructive  activity  on 
all  practical  subjects  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Pacific,  and  from  the  invisible  Cana- 


THE  VETERAN  REENLISTS  63 

dian  line  to  the  tropical  sands  of  Mexico. 
He  discovered  the  truth  of  Milton's  word, 

"Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  renowned  than  war." 

Among  such  conditions  and  people  the 
young  groom  took  his  bride.  He  married 
Miss  Mary  Robinson,  cousin  of  him  who  was 
best  known  as  Chaplain  (afterward  Bishop) 
McCabe.  At  once  they  plunged  into  the 
Western  depths  too  deep  ever  to  be  extri- 
cated, and  following  the  "lure  of  souls"  went 
to  be  missionaries  into  the  wilds  that  waited 
all  too  impatiently  for  the  coming  of  those 
that  were  to  subdue  them.  The  gulches  of 
Montana,  whither  they  first  were  sent,  were 
filled  with  wild  beasts  and  wilder  men  and 
women.  Much  of  the  former  civilization  of 
these  they  here  found  had  been  deposited 
with  the  ancient  remains  of  Ferdinand  de 
Soto  in  the  Mississippi,  when  they  crossed 
it  from  their  Eastern  homes.  Too  many 
men  carried  the  law  in  their  hip  pockets,  and 
the  supreme  court  was  the  man  who  was 
quickest  of  trigger. 


64      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

But  it  was  American  brain  and  brawn. 
Appomattox  had  settled  the  differences  be- 
tween the  States;  sated  with  strife  and  sick 
of  it,  but  highly  satisfied  with  the  results, 
the  men  of  the  gray  vied  with  them  of  the 
blue  in  making  our  country  one  to  be  re- 
spected as  well  as  loved.  In  some  portions 
whole  settlements  were  made  up  of  Southern 
soldiers  and  their  followers.  "The  left  wing 
of  Price's  Army  is  credited  with  a  number 
of  communities,  and  if  the  right  wing  was 
as  large  as  this  left  wing,  Price's  Army  must 
have  been  a  pretty  large  bird.  But  it  mat- 
tered not  to  these  broad-minded  men  of  the 
"new  country";  all  were  Americans  and 
ready  to  fight  again  for  the  perpetuation  of 
the  new  peace  and  the  better  understanding 
among  all  citizens. 


VI 
PREACHERS  AS  STATESMEN 


The  President  [Lincoln]  discovered  very 
quickly  that,  the  issues  of  the  war  being  moral,  the 
support  of  the  churches  was  of  the  last  impor- 
tance to  him.  He  knew  well  that  no  men  under- 
stood the  people  so  thoroughly  as  the  Methodist 
bishops,  who,  being  without  dioceses,  were  con- 
tinually passing  over  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land. — G.  R.  Crooks,  D.D.,  Life  of  Bishop 
Simpson, 


CHAPTER  VI 
PREACHERS  AS  STATESMEN 

It  is  known  that  in  times  of  great  distress 
and  when  fundamental  issues  are  at  stake 
the  ministry  in  our  denominations  have  been 
drafted  to  supply  the  strength  of  their  lives. 

It  was  so  when  the  Continental  Congress 
was  struggling  to  find  the  sure  way  to  lay 
right  foundations  for  our  baby  republic. 
The  Rev.  Jacob  Duche  was  asked  to  attend 
the  meetings  and  pray  for  divine  guidance. 

Bishop  Simpson  was  the  adviser  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  at  times  spending  the  whole 
night  in  prayer  with  that  overtaxed  soul. 

In  the  Spanish- American  War  Dr.  Iliff 
was  a  trusted  friend  and  counselor  of  Presi- 
dent McKinley. 

When  Brigham  H.  Roberts,  the  avowed 

polygamist,   had   been   elected  member   of 

Congress  by  the  Utah  Legislature,  Dr.  Iliff 

said:  "If  Mr.  Roberts  attempts  to  enter  the 

67 


68      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

halls  of  Congress,  I  will  be  heard  in  every 
State  of  the  Union." 

He  made  his  word  good,  and  when  the 
case  was  before  Congress  itself  for  investi- 
gation and  settlement,  the  patriotic  preach- 
er appeared  to  give  evidence.  The  result 
was  the  rejection  of  the  congressman-elect. 

His  statesmanship  is  shown  even  in  better 
light  in  the  fact  that,  knowing  and  prophesy- 
ing the  result  the  primary  mission  school 
would  have  on  the  Mormon  public,  he  fos- 
tered and  encouraged  their  introduction  and 
their  continuance.  These  alarming  centers 
planted  so  widely  among  the  people  from 
Oxford,  Idaho,  to  Saint  George,  Utah,  be- 
came so  productive  of  a  new  sentiment  in 
the  expanding  minds  of  the  students,  that  a 
halt  was  deemed  necessary  by  the  dominant 
church  and  Wilford  Woodruff,  the  presi- 
dent, received  the  "revelation"  which  event- 
ually brought  about  Statehood  for  Utah,  an 
act  of  itself  so  misunderstood  by  the  mission- 
ary societies  of  the  churches  that  support 
was  gradually  withdrawn. 

He  encouraged  the  entrance  of  the  Worn- 


PREACHERS  AS  STATESMEN  69 

an's  Home  Missionary  Society,  the  able 
factor  cooperating  so  helpfully  with  the 
Board  of  Home  Missions  and  Church  Ex- 
tension in  bringing  clear  daylight  to  the 
homes  so  needy  in  Mormondom. 

The  future  historian  cannot  truthfully 
write  the  story  of  progress  in  Utah  and  in 
all  the  Rocky  Mountain  region  without  plac- 
ing this  Methodist  statesman  on  a  high 
pedestal. 

The  lecture  on  "Mormonism  versus 
Americanism"  in  the  following  pages  will 
well  tell  the  tale  of  danger. 


VII 

LECTURE— MORMONISM  A  MEN- 
ACE TO  THE  NATION 


The  kingdom  is  established.  It  is  upon  the 
earth.  The  kingdom  we  are  talking  about, 
preaching  about,  and  trying  to  build  up  is  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth — not  in  the  starry- 
heavens,  nor  in  the  sun;  we  are  trying  to  estab- 
lish the  kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth,  to  which 
really  and  properly  everything  pertaining  to 
men,  their  faith,  their  feelings,  their  convictions, 
their  desires,  and  every  act  of  their  lives  belong, 
that  they  may  be  sealed  by  it  spiritually  and 
temporally.  We  are  called  upon  to  establish  the 
kingdom  of  God  literally  just  as  much  as  spirit- 
ually. There  is  no  man  on  earth  who  can  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  his  heart  and  be  governed 
according  to  the  laws  of  that  kingdom  without 
being  governed  and  controlled  in  all  temporal 
matters. — Sermon  by  Brigham  Young,  in  the 
Journal  of  Discourses,  Vol.  IV,  p.  77, 


CHAPTER  VII 

LECTURE— MORMONISM  A  MEN- 
ACE TO  THE  NATION 

I  haye  had  opportunity  of  knowing 
Mormonism.  I  have  lived  in  Utah  and  in 
adjoining  States  since  1870,  with  residence 
in  Salt  Lake  City  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury. I  have  mingled  with  the  common  peo- 
ple from  British  possessions  to  Arizona; 
have  studied  their  history,  read  their  books, 
met  and  heard  Brigham  Young  and  all  his 
successors,  John  Taylor,  Wilford  Wood- 
ruff, Lorenzo  Snow,  and  Joseph  F.  Smith; 
their  Twelve  Apostles,  presidents,  bishops, 
and  teachers.  I  ought  to  know  whereof  I 
speak.  Duty,  and  not  pleasure,  constrains 
me  to  indict  Mormonism  on  its  own  record 
before  the  bar  of  history.  It  is  the  institu- 
tion and  the  hierarchy  that  is  on  trial.  I 
bear  willing  testimony  that  the  masses  of 
the  Mormon  people  are  peaceable,  indus- 
trious, temperate,  and  to  the  extent  of  their 
73 


74     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

knowledge  and  freedom,  well-meaning  citi- 
zens. From  the  days  of  Joseph  Smith,  the 
founder,  to  the  present  ruling  prophet  (his 
nephew,  Joseph  F.1)  there  has  been  serious 
trouble  between  the  leaders  of  the  Mormon 
Church  and  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  the  part  of  the  speaker  to  re- 
view this  conflict,  assign  reasons,  and  give 
results. 

Why  Is  Mormonism  a  Menace  to  the 
Nation? 

The  four  corner  stones  of  the  temple  of 
liberty  reared  by  our  fathers  are : 

The  true  idea  of  God  and  his  revelation 
to  man; 

The  true  spirit  of  patriotism — "One  coun- 
try and  one  flag";  Separation  of  church  and 
state ; 

The  true  American  school,  and  no  inter- 
ference by  priest,  prophet,  or  pope ; 

The  true  idea  of  the  home — one  wife,  and 
only  one  at  a  time,  and  she  the  crowned 
queen  of  that  household. 

1  Died  at  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  November  19,  1918. 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      75 

Whatever  menaces  these  essential  corner 
stones  is  a  menace  to  the  grandest  republic 
the  world  has  ever  known. 

Mormonism,  judged  by  its  history,  by  its 
doctrines,  by  its  teachings,  and  by  its  prac- 
tices, is  a  menace  to  each  and  every  one  of 
these  corner  stones.  Hence  the  irrepressible 
conflict  of  the  past  eighty  years. 

Joseph  Smith,  Founder  and  Prophet 

Joseph  Smith  was  born  at  Sharon,  Ver- 
mont, December  23,  1805.  When  ten  years 
old  his  family  moved  to  the  State  of  New 
York.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  said  an 
angel  directed  him  to  a  hill,  where  he  found 
golden  plates  upon  which  was  written  the 
Book  of  Mormon.  The  Mormon  Church 
was  organized  at  Palmyra,  New  York, 
April  6,  1830.  Headquarters  were  estab- 
lished in  the  town  of  Kirtland,  Ohio,  in  the 
early  30's. 

Trouble  soon  compelled  Smith  to  move 
to  the  Ear  West,  and  then  to  Independence, 
Missouri.  Here  more  trouble  came,  cul- 
minating in  an  armed  conflict  between  them 


76      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

and  the  Missourians.  They  then  migrated 
to  Illinois  and  built  the  town  of  Nauvoo. 
Smith  was  having  revelations  to  suit  his 
ambition  and  convenience.  He  claimed  to 
be  God's  vicegerent  with  divine  authority 
to  rule  in  all  affairs,  to  take  possession  of 
property,  wives,  and  daughters  belonging  to 
other  folks. 

Here  amid  great  excitement  at  Nauvoo 
and  throughout  Illinois  and  Missouri,  Smith 
and  his  brother  Hyrum,  with  other  leaders, 
were  placed  in  jail  at  Carthage  charged  with 
treason  and  other  lesser  crimes.  On  June 
27, 1844,  a  band  of  hundreds  of  men  stormed 
the  jail  and  fired  upon  these  prisoners. 
Joseph  and  his  brother  were  killed. 

Brigham  Young 

At  the  death  of  Smith,  Brigham  Young, 
the  greatest  leader  the  church  ever  had,  be- 
came president,  prophet,  seer,  and  revelator. 
He  realized  that  the  Mormon  kingdom 
would  never  be  tolerated  by  Christian  civili- 
zation, and  began  at  once  to  isolate  his  fol- 
lowers from  all  contact  with  the  "Gentile" 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      77 

world;  in  1847,  two  years  before  the  Argo- 
nauts rounded  Cape  Horn,  or  the  forty- 
niners  crossed  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  Cali- 
fornia in  search  of  gold,  Brigham  Young 
led  the  people  from  Nauvoo  to  Great  Salt 
Lake.  Since  then  their  number  has  increased 
from  a  few  thousands  to  half  a  million,  and 
their  influence  is  nation-wide  as  a  moral, 
commercial,  and  political  menace. 

The  growth  and  power  of  Mormonism 
are  some  of  the  surprises  of  modern  history. 
I  assign  five  reasons: 

1.  Isolation; 

2.  The  leadership  of  Brigham  Young; 

3.  Thoroughness  of  the  organization; 

4.  Extent  and  nature  of  its  missionary 
propaganda; 

5.  Fanaticism. 

Lord  Bacon  said,  "Given  a  powerful 
organization  and  fanaticism  and  you  have 
the  elements  of  a  dangerous  system." 

For  thirty  years— 1847-1877— Brigham 
Young  was  the  ecclesiastical,  commercial, 
and  political  autocrat  of  Utah.  His  dic- 
tum no  one  dared  to  question.     He  pro- 


78     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

claimed  to  the  world  Smith's  revelation  on 
polygamy  and  ordered  its  practice.  He 
established  the  custom  in  Utah  and  took  to 
himself  a  score  or  more  of  polygamous  wives, 
and  required  the  apostles  and  other  leaders 
to  follow  his  example.  He  blackened  his 
record  with  the  Mountain  Meadow  Massacre 
and  other  atrocious  crimes,  such  as  compose 
the  darkest  pages  of  American  history.  He 
organized  the  state  of  Deseret  and  sent 
representatives  to  Washington  demanding 
its  recognition.  He  compelled  the  govern- 
ment to  send  the  United  States  army  to 
Utah  in  1858  to  put  down  a  Mormon  rebel- 
lion costing  the  nation  a  million  of  dollars, 
as  well  as  hundreds  of  lives  through  expo- 
sure. He  never  acknowledged  the  United 
States  authority  to  the  day  of  his  death  in 
1877,  except  when  forced  to  do  so  or  when 
it  suited  his  scheme.  The  remotest  sugges- 
tion that  Brigham  Young's  statue  be  placed 
in  the  Hall  of  Fame  at  Washington,  or  his 
picture  put  on  the  silverware  of  the  battle- 
ship Utah,  is  disgusting,  and  properly  meets 
with  an  outburst  of  indignation. 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      79 

United  States  in  Utah 

Now,  the  government  had  a  distinctive 
mission  in  Utah,  and  this  address  has  spe- 
cially to  do  with  this  phase  of  the  problem. 

From  Brigham  Young  to  the  present  day 
the  Mormon  hierarchy  has  claimed  divine 
right  to  build  up  an  "imperium  in  imperio33 
in  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  un- 
American  and  destructive  of  the  foundations 
of  the  republic.  The  duty  of  the  nation  was 
imperative.  "Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price 
of  liberty." 

As  early  as  1862  Congress  enacted  laws 
against  polygamy  in  Utah,  and  again  in 
1870.  They  were  denounced  and  defied  by 
Brigham  Young.  The  first  effective  blow 
that  was  dealt  the  Mormon  monster  in  Utah 
was  in  1880,  when  Eli  H.  Murray  was  ap- 
pointed territorial  governor.  Others  had 
filled  the  office,  including  Young  himself ;  but 
General  Murray  will  forever  stand  out  as 
the  great  governor  of  Utah.  There  was  not 
gold  enough  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  buy 
him.    The  denunciations  and  threats  of  the 


80     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

hierarchy  only  served  to  inspire  him  for  the 
inevitable  crisis.  The  opportunity  soon  pre- 
sented itself.  The  election  for  delegate  to 
Congress  was  soon  after  held,  and  George 
Q.  Cannon,  first  counselor  to  the  new  proph- 
et, seer,  and  revelator,  John  Taylor,  was  re- 
elected, having  already  served  five  terms, 
and  who  in  Washington  and  over  the  coun- 
try boasted  his  four  wives.  When  Governor 
Murray  was  asked  for  the  certificate  of  elec- 
tion entitling  Mr.  Cannon  to  take  his  seat 
for  the  sixth  time,  it  was  emphatically  re- 
fused and  the  consequences  were  challenged. 

This  patriotic  act  of  Governor  Murray 
transferred  the  conflict  from  Salt  Lake  City 
to  Washington,  for  Cannon  was  compelled 
to  make  his  appeal  at  the  door  of  the  na- 
tional capital,  forcing  the  issue  directly  upon 
Congress. 

Meantime  something  happened.  When 
the  women  of  the  land,  irrespective  of  church 
or  party  or  section  of  country,  realized  that 
they  had  a  champion  at  the  front,  in  the  per- 
son of  Governor  Murray,  who  had  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions  even  at  the  peril  of 


MUNICIPAL  ELECTION. 


PEOPLE'S  TICKET.  I 


Monday,  February  14th,  1*76. 


©                                  FOR    MAYOR,  © 

|                FERAMORZ   LITTLE.  1 

=                                  ALDERMEN,  J 

P  ls£  Wwrf,         -          iM¥  SPIERS,  f 

|  2iwZ  TFariZ,  HENRY  DINWOODEY.  § 

£  <??y7  Ward,        -         A.  H.  RALEIGH.  « 

§  ^fe  ^      -       -       JOHN  SHARP,  g 

p  5th  Ward,        -       ALEX.  C  PYPER.  g 

g                                COUNCI  LORS,  | 

BRIG  HAM  YOUNG, 

5             «70#JV  HENRY  SMITH,.  S 

I             NICHOLAS   GROESBECK,  i 

I         j:  js.  winder,  % 

§             Z>*4  F7X>  0.  C ALDER,  % 

|             GEORGE   REYNOLDS,  % 
%            ELLIS   MORRIS, 

p             ELIJAH  F.   SHEETS,  § 

F             HARRISON  SPERRY.  © 

r  TR  E  AS  U  RER, 

S               iW723   tf:   SCHETTLER,  I 


RECORDER, 

|  ,     ./o^v  r.  CAINE. 

*  MARSHAL, 

£        -  ANDREW  BURT. 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      81 

his  life,  they  rallied  to  his  slogan,  "No  polyg- 
amist  need  apply!" 

Congress  was  forced  to  obey  the  protest 
that  came  up  from  every  district  of  every 
State  of  the  Union.  The  result  was  that 
George  Q.  Cannon,  first  counselor  to  the 
prophet,  seer,  and  revelator,  had  to  hie  him- 
self back  to  Utah  harem  to  look  after  his 
increasing  family  cares.  That  was  the  first 
ray  of  light  that  gleamed  from  the  nation's 
capital  into  the  dark  valleys  of  Utah;  and 
we  are  indebted  to  the  women  of  the  land 
for  that  daydawn.  Public  conscience  in  and 
out  of  Congress  was  so  aroused  that  quickly 
were  passed  the  Edmunds  and  Edmunds- 
Tucker  Bills.  Edmunds  was  a  Republican 
senator  from  Vermont,  and  Tucker  a  Demo- 
cratic representative  from  Virginia.  It  was 
no  political  question  then — the  sanctity  of 
the  American  Christian  home  should  be  pre- 
served. 

The  enforcement  of  these  laws  necessi- 
tated one  of  three  things:  obedience,  en- 
forced exile,  or  the  penitentiary.  I  sat  in 
the  Salt  Lake  Tabernacle  and  heard  leader 


82     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

after  leader  denounce  and  insult  the  women 
who  had  amended  the  measure,  the  Congress 
that  passed  it,  the  President  that  approved 
it,  and  the  courts  that  enforced  it.  They 
urged  the  people  to  disregard  the  laws,  "live 
their  religion"  (polygamy),  assuring  them 
that  the  Mormon  God  would  break  in  pieces 
the  nation.  Hundreds,  including  apostles, 
presidents  of  stakes,  bishops,  and  others, 
were  imprisoned;  hundreds  went  on  the 
"underground"  or  fled  to  foreign  countries, 
although  every  one  was  offered  freedom  if 
he  would  obey  the  law.  George  Q.  Cannon 
in  an  address  declared,  "The  government 
will  be  as  powerless  in  the  future  as  it  has 
been  in  the  past  to  enforce  the  anti-polyg- 
amy law."  Nevertheless,  on  his  way  from 
Washington  he  himself  took  to  the  "under- 
ground" railway  when  it  had  become  effec- 
tive in  Utah. 

President  Woodruff's  Manifesto 

The  hierarchy  soon  became  tired  of  play- 
ing the  martyr;  also  there  was  pending  be- 
fore Congress  legislation  that  would  deprive 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      83 

all  Mormons  from  holding  office  or  exercis- 
ing the  elective  franchise. 

In  September,  1890,  President  Wood- 
ruff, himself  in  hiding  to  keep  out  of  the 
penitentiary,  issued  a  "manifesto"  or  revela- 
tion, suspending  polygamy  and  all  polyga- 
mous relations.  In  the  following  October 
their  General  Conference  by  vote  unani- 
mously approved  the  manifesto  of  the 
prophet.  Later  President  Woodruff,  his 
counselor,  George  Q.  Cannon,  Joseph  F. 
Smith,  and  the  Twelve  Apostles  over  their 
own  signatures  declared  to  President  Har- 
rison, the  Congress,  and  the  nation  at  large 
that  the  above-named  revelation  was  sacred 
and  binding  and  would  be  obeyed.  On  these 
solemn  promises  President  Harrison  granted 
amnesty  to  all  offenders.  And  because  of 
these  and  other  solemn  promises  and  the  in- 
dividual sworn  testimonies  to  the  same  pur- 
port by  the  priesthood,  the  government 
turned  over  to  the  Mormon  Church  all 
property  hitherto  confiscated;  but  with  the 
positive  assurance  that  it  was  never  to  be 
used  to  propagate  polygamy. 


84     THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

It  was  specified  that  said  property  should 
be  used  only  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  of  the 
church,  for  education  of  its  children,  and 
for  the  building  and  repair  of  houses  of  wor- 
ship in  which  the  rightfulness  of  the  practice 
of  polygamy  should  not  be  inculcated. 
Never  were  pledges  more  definitely  made  to 
the  nation,  and  never  so  defiantly  violated 
as  these  were  broken  by  the  hierarchy.  All 
the  while  politicians  of  both  parties  in 
Washington  and  in  Utah,  and  leaders  of 
the  Mormon  Church,  were  coquetting  for 
Statehood ;  each  courting  favors  and  making 
promises  that  Utah  would  be  a  Republican 
or  a  Democratic  State.  Many  of  the  "old 
Gentile  Guard"  opposed  the  movement,  de- 
claring it  would  be  neither  Republican  nor 
Democratic,  but  Mormon,  first,  last,  and 
always. 

The  following  was  passed  by  the  Confer- 
ence of  the  Methodists  at  their  session  in 
1891: 

Sec.  3.  Committee  on  State  of  Affairs  in  Utah. 
While  efforts  are  being  made  in  Salt  Lake  and 
throughout  Utah  to   organize  national  political 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      85 

parties,  we  believe  the  times  are  not  yet  ripe  for 
such  movement.  We  fear  the  formation  of  such 
party  lines  will  give  opportunity  for  Mormonism 
to  mask  its  purposes,  and  under  the  guise  of  polit- 
ical patronage  to  secure  the  admission  of  Utah 
as  a  State,  and  then  by  its  large  majority  to 
obtain  control  of  Utah  politics  and  restore  all 
the  conditions  of  the  past  which  it  has  cost  so 
much  to  overthrow. 

Was  ever  utterance  more  prophetic? 

On  July  4,  1896,  the  forty-fifth  star  was 
placed  on  the  "Flag  of  Stars,"  a  monu- 
mental mistake  for  which  both  Republican 
and  Democratic  leaders  are  responsible.  The 
day  for  the  launching  of  Statehood  and  in- 
augurating its  officials  was  a  great  occasion. 

Inauguration  of  Governor  H.  M.  Wells 

The  exercises  were  held  in  the  Salt  Lake 
Tabernacle.  The  day  preceding  the  event 
I  was  waited  upon  by  the  committee  in 
charge  and  invited  to  be  one  of  the  two 
chaplains  of  ceremonies;  President  Wilford 
Woodruff  had  been  selected  for  the  other. 
I  reported  for  duty  the  next  morning.    To 


86      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

my  utter  amazement,  I  was  honored  with 
a  seat  in  the  prophet's  carriage,  and  it  led 
the  parade  through  the  streets  of  the  "city 
of  the  Saints."  Gentile  boys  from  the  house- 
tops and  from  telegraph  poles  piped  out: 
"Hello,  Iliff!  When  did  you  join  the  Mor- 
mons?"   "How  many  wives  have  you  got?" 

By  and  by  the  procession  halted  in  front 
of  the  Tabernacle.  The  police  opened  the 
way  through  the  surging  crowd  into  the 
packed  building.  I  was  instructed  to  hold 
on  to  the  prophet's  arm,  who  led  me  down 
the  aisle,  up  the  steps,  passing  by  bishops, 
apostles,  and  elders  to  the  chief  seat  in  the 
Sanhedrin,  while  the  great  organ  pealed  and 
the  multitude  shouted.  President  Wood- 
ruff, by  his  first  counselor,  George  Q.  Can- 
non, opened  with  a  prayer  which  he  said  the 
Lord  had  dictated  to  him  the  night  before. 
I  closed  the  exercises  with  a  prayer  which, 
though  I  say  it  reverently,  the  Lord  may 
not  have  dictated;  for  I  felt  sure  that  Con- 
gress and  the  country  had  been  deceived. 

In  less  than  twelve  months  after  the  act 
of  granting  Statehood  to  Utah  was  com- 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      87 

pleted  polygamy  was  resumed,  if,  in  fact, 
it  was  ever  abandoned  except  by  the  very 
few;  and  dictation  by  the  Mormon  leaders 
on  political  matters  was  so  intolerable  that 
it  caused  a  temporary  rupture  among  the 
hierarchy  itself. 

Brigham  H.  Roberts 

In  less  than  three  years  the  whole  nation 
was  shocked  at  the  election  of  a  polygamist, 
Brigham  H.  Roberts,  to  the  fifty-sixth  Con- 
gress. It  was  as  natural  as  it  was  defiant. 
Brigham  Young  in  1872  made  the  declara- 
tion that  he  would  fool  both  the  political 
parties  and  get  Statehood  for  Utah,  and 
then  cram  polygamy  down  the  throat  of  the 
Congress.  Both  parties  had  been  fooled; 
Statehood  had  been  secured,  but  the  remain- 
ing part  of  Brigham's  prophecy  must  be  ful- 
filled. The  polygamist,  Roberts,  had  been 
selected  for  the  high  privilege  of  cramming 
polygamy  down  the  throat  of  the  fifty-sixth 
Congress.  I  appealed  personally  to  Apostle 
John  Henry  Smith,  Hon.  W.  W.  Riter, 
and  other  leaders  with  whom  I  had  friendly 


83      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

relations,  to  have  Roberts  called  off  by  the 
church  authorities,  assuring  them  that  the 
Protestant  churches  and  the  women  of  the 
land  would  never  surfer  a  polygamist  to  have 
a  seat  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 

Of  course  my  entreaties  received  no  seri- 
ous consideration,  and  Brigham  H.  Roberts 
was  sent  by  the  hierarchy  of  Utah  to  pollute 
the  House  of  Representatives. 

Following  the  election  of  Mr.  Roberts  a 
meeting  of  the  Protestant  clergy  was  held 
in  Salt  Lake  City  to  devise  plans  for  pro- 
testing against  his  admission  to  Congress. 
It  resulted  in  the  appointment  of  a  commit- 
tee of  three  with  full  power  to  prepare  and 
present  to  the  country  at  large,  and  to  Con- 
gress in  particular,  charges  and  remon- 
strances. I  was  honored  with  the  chairman- 
ship of  this  committee.  The  Rev.  Dr.  W. 
M.  Paden,  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church,  and  the  Rev.  C.  T.  Brown,  pastor 
of  the  First  Congregational  Church,  both  of 
Salt  Lake,  were  the  other  members.  I 
spoke  in  thirty  States  of  the  Union,  before 
Conferences,  Presbyteries,  mass  meetings, 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      89 

societies  of  women,  traveling  from  Maine  to 
California  and  from  Minnesota  to  Florida; 
all  to  help  the  women  in  arousing  public 
sentiment. 

Rejection  of  Roberts 

Three  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  Con- 
gress I  went  to  see  the  Hon.  C.  H.  Gros- 
venor,  of  Ohio,  enlisting  the  sympathy  and 
the  patriotic  force  of  himself  and  others, 
members  of  Congress,  with  the  well-known 
result — the  prevention  of  Mr.  Roberts  from 
taking  the  coveted  seat. 

The  rejection  of  Brigham  H.  Roberts  by 
the  fifty-sixth  Congress  was  the  severest 
punishment  ever  inflicted  upon  the  Mormon 
hierarchy,  and  some  of  us  who  were  active  in 
the  movement  will  never  be  forgiven. 

The  Twins 

One  of  the  plural  wives  of  Mr.  Roberts 
had  borne  him  twins.  The  Salt  Lake  Trib- 
une, a  non-Mormon  daily,  had  a  wide-awake 
cartoonist  who  made  much  capital  of  the 
fact.    When  the  gentleman-elect  started  for 


90      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Washington  to  gain  his  contested  seat,  this 
cartoon  man  brought  out  a  picture  of  the 
innocent  children  holding  hands  and  danc- 
ing, saying, 

"Oh,  ho,  there  goes  pa 
Down  to  Washington, 
But  he  won't  take  ma." 

When  the  sad  end  came,  and  with  head 
not  so  erect  the  disappointed  man  had  to 
return  home  to  the  bosoms  of  his  family,  the 
same  innocents  were  again  dancing,  saying, 

"Oh,  ho,  here  comes  pa 
Back  from  Washington; 
Too  much  ma  I" 

But  the  Mormon  monster  is  neither  dead 
nor  dying.  When  Brigham  Young  died  in 
1877,  churchmen,  statesmen,  and  editors 
over  the  country,  said,  "Mormonism  will 
now  go  to  pieces."  Senator  Mark  Hanna, 
that  astute  and  far-seeing  politician,  said  to 
me  in  Washington  city  soon  after  the  re- 
jection of  Mr.  Roberts,  "Iliff,  you  ought  to 
let  up  on  the  Mormons  now;  they  will  be 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      91 

good  after  such  punishment."  I  had  rea- 
son to  believe  that  Mr.  Hanna  was  hobnob- 
bing with  Mormon  leaders  looking  to  the 
transferring  of  the  Mormon  vote  of  Utah 
and  Idaho  from  the  Democratic  to  the 
Republican  party.  Up  to  this  time  national 
politics  had  not  figured  very  seriously  in 
Utah  affairs;  but  the  hierarchy  was  deter- 
mined to  have  one  of  its  number  in  the  law- 
making body  of  the  nation.  The  edict  had 
already  gone  forth  from  church  headquar- 
ters that  Apostle  Reed  Smoot,  professedly 
a  Republican,  was  to  supplant  Senator  J. 
L.  Rawlins,  Democrat.  Of  course  Utah  was 
carried  by  the  Mormon  Church.  Of  course 
a  Mormon  Legislature  elected  Apostle 
Smoot  United  States  senator. 

The  following  part  was  added  after 
Roberts  was  unseated. 

Political  Ascendency  and  Power 

My  final  contention  is  that  the  chief  men- 
ace of  Mormonism  to  the  nation  to-day  is  its 
political  ascendency  and  power.  Back  in 
the  40's  in  Nauvoo,  when  there  were  but  a 


92      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

few  thousand  Mormons,  so  close  was  the 
vote  in  the  State  that  both  political  parties 
courted  the  favor  of  Joseph  Smith.  Nauvoo 
wras  granted  such  privileges  by  the  Legisla- 
ture that  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  make 
an  arrest  within  the  municipality.  It  was  a 
law  unto  itself.  Finally  a  mob  put  an  end 
to  the  outrages.  The  same  political  con- 
ditions prevail  to-day  in  Utah.  In  the  final 
analysis  one  man,  Joseph  F.  Smith,  dictates 
its  politics. 

If  Utah  were  the  only  State  involved,  the 
menace  would  not  be  so  serious ;  but  the  pur- 
pose is  to  secure  the  balance  of  power  in 
every  Rocky  Mountain  and  Pacific  State, 
and  eventually  the  United  States.  These 
include  Nevada,  Montana,  Washington, 
Oregon,  California,  Arizona,  and  New 
Mexico,  as  well  as  Utah — an  area  ten  times 
as  large  as  the  original  colonies  and  almost 
as  extensive  as  the  Confederate  States. 
These  possess  boundless  resources;  many  of 
them  have  resources  scarcely  touched  and 
grow  fruits  and  cereals  of  every  zone  and 
variety  of  climate.    It  is  not  to  be  wondered 


LECTURE— MORMONISM      93 

at  that  when  Brigham  Young  reached  the 
shores  of  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  struck  his 
staff  to  the  earth,  he  shouted:  "This  is  the 
Zion  of  the  Lord,  the  land  that  flows  with 
milk  and  honey,  and  I  will  hold  it  against 
all  invaders.  I  say,  as  the  Lord  lives,  we 
are  bound  to  become  an  independent  nation 
by  ourselves." 

While  I  do  not  believe  that  the  hierarchy 
of  to-day  can  carry  to  consummation  the 
revelations  and  predictions  of  Brigham 
Young,  nevertheless  it  behooves  "Ameri- 
cans to  be  on  guard." 

Bear  with  me  in  closing.  I  will  cite  con- 
ditions and  dangers  to  date. 

Same  Old  Serpent 

First :  Mormonism  is  the  same  old  serpent. 
The  leopard  has  not  changed  his  spots. 
Polygamy  is  believed,  taught,  and  practiced 
by  Mormons  to-day  in  Utah  and  in  adjoin- 
ing States,  not  only  by  the  deluded  followers 
but  also  by  the  leaders  themselves.  At  the 
Smoot  investigation  the  admission  of  the 
president  and  Apostles  was  made  that  they 


94      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

had  resumed  conjugal  relations  with  polyga- 
mous wives.  Both  Mormons  and  Gentiles 
were  amazed  at  the  bland  and  blatant  testi- 
mony. Prophet  Joseph  F.  Smith,  under 
oath,  boldly  declared  to  the  Senate  Commit- 
tee that  he  was  then  living  with  five  wives, 
and  that  to  date  they  had  borne  him  eleven 
children  since  he  had  pledged  himself  to 
obey  and  live  within  the  provisions  of  the 
manifesto,  or  revelation  of  1890,  forbidding 
all  polygamous  relations.  When  questioned 
as  to  his  purpose  in  the  future  he  frankly 
informed  the  Committee  that  he  would  con- 
tinue in  the  practice.  Apostle  Lyman,  who 
is  next  in  succession  for  the  presidency,  was 
interrogated  by  the  late  Senator  Hoar  as 
follows : 

"So,  you,  an  Apostle  of  your  church,  ex- 
pecting to  succeed  Mr.  Smith  to  the  presi- 
dency, and  in  that  capacity  to  receive  divine 
revelations  yourself,  confess  that  you  are 
now  living  and  expect  to  live  in  disobedience 
to  the  law  of  the  country,  the  law  of  the 
church,  and  the  law  of  God?" 

To     which     question     Apostle     Francis 


LECTURE— MORMONTSM      95 

Marion  Lyman  replied  with  the  emphasis, 
"Yes." 

Similar  testimony  was  given  by  John 
Henry  Smith,  Charles  W.  Penrose,  Brig- 
ham  H.  Roberts,  and  other  prominent 
leaders. 

I  join  with  Bishop  F.  S.  Spalding,  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  Utah,  and 
the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  M.  Paden,  pastor  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Salt  Lake  City,  in 
commending  Burton  J.  Hendricks,  who 
emphatically  declared  in  McClure's  Maga- 
zine for  the  months  of  January  and  Febru- 
ary, 1911: 

"(a)  That  polygamy  is  almost  as  preva- 
lent in  Utah  now  as  it  was  before  1890; 

"(b)  That  if  polygamy  should  suddenly 
stop,  enough  young  people  have  entered  the 
relation  recently  to  keep  it  alive  for  another 
fifty  years; 

"(c)  That  one  of  the  problems  with  which 
the  American  people  will  soon  have  to  deal 
is  the  revival  of  polygamy  in  Utah." 

(The  foregoing  is  the  heart  of  the  great 
lecture   that  he   delivered   in  hundreds   of 


96      THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

cities,  towns,  and  villages  over  America. 
That  it  had  an  unusual  hearing  and  found 
ready  sympathy  among  the  hearers  is  evi- 
denced by  the  results  which  followed.) 


VIII 

ADDRESS  AT  DEDICATION  OF 
GRAND  ARMY  MONUMENT 


On  Fame's  eternal  camping-ground 
Their  silent  tents  are  spread, 

And  Glory  guards  with  solemn  round 
The  bivouac  of  the  dead. 

— Theodore  O'Hara. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ADDRESS    AT    DEDICATION    OF 
GRAND  ARMY  MONUMENT 

This  address,  delivered  in  Salt  Lake  City 
in  the  beautiful  Mount  Olivet  Cemetery, 
where  his  own  body  now  lies,  is  sufficient  to 
indicate  his  patriotic  fervor  and  show  his 
uncompromising  attitude  toward  any  per- 
son or  cause  that  would  mar  the  symmetry 
and  add  any  discredit  to  the  Union. 

It  was  delivered  to  an  immense  assembly, 
and  was  the  dedicatory  event  for  the  tall 
monument  erected  to  the  soldiers  of  the 
Grand  Army  and  presented  by  the  Ladies 
of  the  Relief  Corps  of  Salt  Lake  City.  The 
date  of  the  address  is  May  30,  1894. 

Address 

Ladies  of  the  Relief  Corps,  Comrades  of 
the  Grand  Army  and  Patriotic  Citizens: 

We  are  assembled  to  dedicate  this  monu- 
ment to  the  memory  of  that  noble  army  of 
99 


100    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

our  country's  defenders  of  1861-65..  It  is 
the  gift  of  the  Woman's  Relief  Corps  of 
James  B.  McKean  Post,  Grand  Army  of 
the  Republic,  which  entails  upon  every  old 
soldier  lasting  obligations  of  gratitude  and 
admiration  to  these  loyal  women.  The 
cause  in  which  loved  ones  fell,  whose  graves 
you  have  just  covered  with  flowers  and  bap- 
tized with  your  tears,  must  have  failed  unless 
it  had  been  sustained  by  the  ranks  of  the 
patriotic  mothers  and  daughters  through- 
out the  North.  You  have  invited  me  to  de- 
liver an  address  appropriate  to  the  occasion, 
and  however  earnestly  I  may  desire  to  meet 
your  wish  I  shall  fall  far  below  my  idea  of 
what  this  granite  shaft  means,  and  for  what 
it  stands. 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  look  upon 
monuments  in  many  lands  erected  to  com- 
memorate historic  events  and  in  honor  of 
great  men.  I  have  stood  on  the  apex  of  the 
pyramid  of  Cheops,  amid  the  sands  of  the 
Egyptian  desert,  and  looked  down  on  the 
mighty  Sphinx,  whose  sleepless  eyes  have 
kept  watch  over  the  mysterious  Nile  for 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     101 

thousands  of  years.  At  the  close  of  many 
a  glorious  sunset,  as  the  blue  Mediterranean 
was  burning  with  a  crimsoned  glow,  I  have 
sat  on  the  ruins  of  the  Acropolis  at  Athens 
remembering  that  the  ancient  Greek  pointed 
with  pride  to  the  matchless  Parthenon  as 
enshrining  the  Palladium  of  his  country,  and 
reverently  listened  that  I  might  hear  the 
voices  of  Plato  and  Demosthenes  speaking 
with  the  clear  light  of  heavenly  knowledge. 
I  have  walked  at  evening  hour,  when  the 
closing  day  showed  dimly  through  the  win- 
dows of  Schloss  Kirche  at  Wittenberg,  as 
the  simple  townsfolk  were  strolling  in  and 
out  of  the  sacred  edifice  where  rests  the 
dust  of  Martin  Luther.  In  imagination  I 
saw  the  greatest  of  Protestant  reformers  as 
he  came  to  that  spot  nearly  four  hundred 
years  ago,  with  the  immortal  theses  in  one 
hand  and  the  hammer  in  the  other.  The  ring 
of  that  hammer  as  he  sent  home  the  nails 
startled  Germany  out  of  the  slumbers  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  and  its  reverberations  were  dis- 
tinctly heard  at  the  Vatican  on  the  Tiber. 
I  have  wandered  by  the  hour  through  that 


102    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

greatest  Abbey  of  all  countries,  Westmin- 
ster, and  looked  admiringly  upon  monuments 
that  seemed  to  breathe  with  the  inspiration 
of  heroes,  poets,  scholars,  and  reformers, 
whose  dust  sleeps  beneath  the  arches  of  the 
holy  place.  I  have  mingled  with  the  busy 
throng  in  Trafalgar  Square  and  admired 
the  beautiful  column  commemorative  of  the 
achievements  of  Lord  Nelson  on  the  sea.  I 
have  been  enraptured  at  the  magnificence 
of  the  tomb  of  Napoleon  in  Paris,  sullen 
with  gloom,  portentous  of  the  shadows  of 
Waterloo,  but  holding  the  remains  of  one 
of  the  most  richly  endowed  men  God  ever 
created,  and  who  trod  down  Europe  for 
fifteen  years.  I  have  stood  at  sunset  in  the 
shadow  of  the  Washington  monument  at 
our  nation's  capital,  and  to  myself  have 
said,  "This  stands  for  that  majestic  figure 
and  sentiment,  'First  in  war,  first  in  peace, 
and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen.'  " 
I  have  gazed  upon  that  silent  shaft  which 
pierces  the  sky  on  Bunker  Hill  until  my  soul 
has  been  stirred  with  a  love  of  country  born 
of  an  ancestral  patriotism  that  antedates  the 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     103 

Revolution.  Bunker  Hill  will  continue  to 
echo  the  farmers'  shot  at  Lexington  and  the 
surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown,  for- 
ever reminding  our  children  that  the  blood 
of  their  fathers  disenthralled  the  colonies 
from  the  oppression  of  Great  Britain  and 
united  them  into  a  sovereign  republic. 

But  higher  than  any  monument  built  by 
human  hands  in  ancient  or  modern  times, 
rises  the  immortal  idea  represented  by  this 
granite  column,  presented  by  these  mothers, 
wives,  and  daughters  to-day.  This  monu- 
ment represents  the  might  and  majesty,  the 
power  and  dignity,  of  the  foremost  nation 
in  the  world.  This  monument  represents 
the  marching  columns  of  Grant  and  Sher- 
man, Meade  and  Thomas,  Hooker  and 
Logan,  Sheridan  and  Kilpatrick.  This 
monument  is  a  symbol  of  the  heroism  dis- 
played by  Leonidas  and  his  three  thousand 
at  Thermopylae,  Xenophon  and  his  ten 
thousand  on  the  great  retreat,  Miltiades  and 
his  handful  of  Greeks  as  they  swept  from 
the  plains  of  Marathon  the  hordes  of  Persian 
invaders.     Higher  still  rises  the  idea  for 


104    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

which  this  monument  stands.  That  idea  in- 
spired the  charter  of  our  liberties  in  the 
humble  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  and  the 
framers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  sent  echoing  around  the  world  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  old  Liberty  Bell  as  it  proclaimed 
"Liberty  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth," 
a  hundred  and  eighteen  years  ago.  It  broke 
the  shackles  of  four  million  slaves,  and  in 
the  graves  where  sleep  the  nation's  dead  it 
buried  side  by  side  with  them  the  heresy  of 
State  rights  and  secession. 

The  idea  of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  in- 
dividual man  is  not  of  human  origin.  It 
had  its  birth  at  Bethlehem.  It  took  dual 
shape  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man  as  taught  and  practiced 
by  the  "Wonder  of  the  Ages."  No  such 
idea  had  ever  dawned  upon  the  race.  The 
Jew  called  the  Samaritan  a  dog,  and  the 
Greek  called  the  Jew  a  barbarian.  Even 
Athens,  whose  temples  shone  with  splendor, 
whose  marble  almost  breathed  under  the 
touch  of  Phidias,  whose  birds  pecked  at  the 
grapes    of    Apelles,    and    whose    academic 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     105 

groves  were  vocal  with  the  hum  of  bees,  the 
philosophy  of  Sophocles — Athens,  with  all 
her  unbaptized  learning,  eloquence,  philoso- 
phy, art,  and  civilization,  could  say  no  more 
than  this:  "There  are  three  things  for  which 
to  thank  all  the  gods :  first,  I  am  a  reasoning 
being  and  not  a  brute ;  second,  I  am  a  Greek 
and  not  a  barbarian ;  third,  I  am  a  man  and 
not  a  woman."  The  mightiest  product  of 
all  her  philosophy  and  learning  could  not 
rise  above  the  prejudices  of  race  or  sex.  The 
crowning  glory  for  which  this  monument 
stands  is  that  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Gen- 
tile, Greek  nor  barbarian,  bond  nor  free, 
male  nor  female,  but  a  universal,  world- 
wide brotherhood,  knowing  no  caste,  no 
color,  no  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

The  struggle  for  the  recognition  of  such 
an  idea  has  been  long  and  hard.  This  sub- 
lime hope  of  the  race  has  had  to  contend  in 
turn  with  warrior  and  prophet,  state  and 
church,  priest  and  king,  nobility  and  aris- 
tocracy, position  and  wealth.  But  running 
through  all  the  past,  of  which  history  gives 
any  record,  there  is  seen  a  bright  chain  of 


106    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

destiny  leading  up  to  one  goal — civil  and 
religious  liberty;  and  the  final  culmination 
of  this  struggle  was  at  Appomattox  Court 
House,  April  9,  1865. 

For  the  sake  of  our  faith  and  hope  let  us 
review  a  little : 

On  June  5,  1215,  King  John  of  Eng- 
land signed  the  Great  Charter  (Magna 
Charta),  which  has  been  considered  by  all 
succeeding  ages  the  basis  of  English  liber- 
ties, and  to  which  event  America,  in  part, 
owes  the  germs  of  her  independence. 

On  May  23,  1498,  Savonarola  was 
hanged,  burned,  and  his  ashes  flung  into  the 
Arno;  but  after  four  hundred  years  the  lib- 
erty for  which  he  was  a  martyr  hastens  to 
honor  and  to  prepetuate  his  memory.  To 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  squares  in  Flo- 
rence, Italy,  they  have  given  the  name, 
not  of  a  king,  not  of  a  pope,  but  Savonarola, 
and  on  the  spot  where  he  was  burned  they 
have  erected  a  fountain  of  which  all  Floren- 
tines may  well  be  proud.  As  I  watched  the 
descendants  of  the  Medici  come  and  drink 
at  this  fountain,  I  heard  a  voice  throughout 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     107 

the  earth  and  sky  and  heaven:  "Galileo, 
Galileo,  Galileo,  the  world  moves!" 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  mur- 
derous Inquisition  had  crushed  out  the  hopes 
of  all  southern  Europe,  and  had  reached  as 
far  as  the  Netherlands,  the  obscure  William 
of  Orange  and  his  beggars  of  the  sea,  aided 
by  Henry  "the  Good,"  the  plumed  knight 
of  Navarre,  hurled  the  legions  of  Alva  back 
over  the  plains  and  broke  the  yoke  of  proud 
Philip  of  Spain,  that  the  Dutch  Republic 
might  become  another  light  of  liberty  at 
which  America  two  centuries  later  could 
light  her  torch. 

In  1640  the  wanton  and  cruel  Charles  I 
of  England  summoned  his  Parliament  for 
the  last  time  to  do  his  bidding.  Among  the 
members  appeared  a  mysterious  personage, 
sent  up  from  Bedford.  He  is  described  as 
wearing  "a  plain  threadbare  suit  made  by 
a  country  tailor,  a  slouch  hat,  and  a  sword 
stuck  close  to  his  side."  Some  one  inquired 
of  Hampton  who  that  sloven  was ;  his  reply 
was  prophetic:  "That  sloven  whom  you  see 
there,  if  we  should  ever  come  to  a  breach 


108    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

with  the  king,  will  be  the  greatest  man  in 
England."  The  crisis  soon  came,  and  under 
the  fervid  eloquence  and  flashing  sword  of 
that  sloven  the  people's  battle-cry  of  "God 
and  Liberty"  rang  out  over  the  bloody  fields 
of  Marston  Moor  and  Dunbar,  and  Oliver 
Cromwell  became  the  hero  of  the  English 
common  people  and  an  inspiration  to  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Two  hundred  and  seventy-four  years  ago 
there  leaped  from  the  deck  of  the  Mayflower 
to  Plymouth  Rock  a  government  founded 
upon  the  same  exalted  idea  of  liberty  and 
equal  rights  for  all  men.  "The  occasion  was 
not  an  accident,  but  a  result." 

"We  know  what  masters  laid  thy  keel, 
What  workmen  wrought  thy  ribs  of  steel, 
Who  made  each  mast  and  sail  and  rope, 
What  anvils  rang,  what  hammers  beat." 

It  is  true  that  the  seeds  of  liberty  were 
wafted  to  us  from  Holland  and  from  Eng- 
land, but  they  took  root  under  our  free  sky, 
pure  air,  and  virgin  soil,  and  we  sent  back 
and  sowed  through  all  Europe  the  same 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     109 

blessed  truths  which  emancipated  us.  Eng- 
land, Germany,  Russia,  Austria,  Italy,  and 
Ireland  are  now  feeling  the  power  of  that 
idea.  There  are  governments  that  still  say 
that  men  are  not  born  equal.  But  the  cry 
of  the  people  thunders  round  the  world  to- 
day: "Not  the  king,  not  the  priest,  not  the 
royalty,  not  the  nobility,  not  the  president, 
not  the  money-power,  but  the  people  are 
the  masters." 

Of  the  same  character  of  this  long  line 
of  historic  events  is  that  sublime  declaration 
of  the  revolutionary  fathers:  "We,  there- 
fore, the  representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  general  Congress  as- 
sembled, appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge 
of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  inten- 
tions, do,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  good  people  of  these  united  colonies, 
solemnly  publish  and  declare  that  these 
united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to 
be,  free  and  independent  States."  There- 
fore, the  march  of  all  the  centuries  up  free- 
dom's path  toward  individual  self-govern- 
ment crystallizes  around  the  Declaration  of 


110    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Independence  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

There  is  one  more  act  in  the  development 
of  this  wonderful  philosophy  of  history  to 
which  I  want  to  refer.  The  great  rebellion 
of  1861  was  the  culmination  of  the  working 
out  of  the  mighty  forces  of  the  problem  of 
self-government.  It  was  the  crowning  act 
of  all  the  preceding  struggles  for  liberty  and 
the  rights  of  the  people.  It  was  the  con- 
summation of  eighteen  centuries — the  full 
fruition  of  hopes  long  deferred. 

I  purpose  to  turn  back  the  telescope  of 
memory  over  that  great  period  of  our  his- 
tory with  which  some  of  us  are  too  familiar, 
but  which  must  not  be  forgotten,  lest  the 
lesson  which  it  teaches  should  also  perish. 
I  am  apprehensive  that  such  a  review  may 
provoke  criticism;  but  the  occasion  of  this 
hour  and  the  previous  condition  of  the  coun- 
try impel  me  to-day  to  speak  plainly  of  the 
past,  earnestly  of  the  present,  and  hopefully 
of  the  future.  For  "when  the  sons  of  God 
came  to  present  themselves  before  the  Lord, 
Satan  came  also  among  them."    In  the  won- 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     111 

derful  growth  of  the  American  republic  two 
antagonistic  types  of  civilization  vied  with 
each  other  for  supremacy.  They  were  born 
antagonists  and  a  final  and  decisive  conflict 
between  them  was  irrepressible  as  it  was  in- 
evitable. The  one  type  started  from  James- 
town, Virginia,  and  spread  along  the  south- 
ern shore  of  the  Atlantic  "bearing  upon  its 
aristocratic  coat  of  arms  the  emblems  of 
the  imperious  cavaliers  of  Charles  I,"  from 
whom  many  delighted  to  trace  their  origin 
through  the  F.  F.  V.  (the  First  Families  of 
Virginia),  and  yoked  to  their  slow  car  of 
progress  was  the  growing  engine  of  human 
slavery. 

The  effect  of  slavery  was  the  corrupting 
of  the  morals  and  the  paralyzing  of  the  life- 
blood  of  public  enterprise.  Under  its  influ- 
ence the  whole  South  went  wrong,  and  the 
pioneer  spirit  for  the  development  of  new 
territory  was  opposed  and  finally  crushed  to 
death.  The  other  type  of  civilization  un- 
furled its  banner  of  freedom  at  Plymouth 
Rock  and  began  its  conquest  of  the  new 
world  with  "God  and  Liberty"  as  the  battle- 


112    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

cry.  It  swept  along  the  coast  of  the  north- 
ern Atlantic  to  Manhattan  Island,  where 
among  the  Dutch  settlers  the  spirit  of  Wil- 
liam the  Silent  had  been  planted.  Under 
the  mighty  impulse  of  a  common  brother- 
hood and  the  strong  engine  of  free  labor  it 
rolled  onward  through  the  New  England 
and  the  Middle  States,  swept  over  the 
heights  of  the  Alleghanies,  down  the  great 
valleys  of  the  Ohio,  across  the  broad  prairies 
of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  hurrying  and  laughing 
over  desert  and  plain,  halting  not  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Wahsatch,  Sierra  Nevada  or 
Coast  Range,  and  reveling  in  exultant  joy 
under  the  Italian  skies  and  on  the  golden 
fields  of  the  Pacific  slope.  This  triumphant 
host  carried  as  their  coat  of  arms  the  peo- 
ple's rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness.  Their  political  gods  were  free 
thought,  free  speech,  free  press,  free  labor, 
free  school,  and  free  ballot.  They  bore  as 
their  credentials  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  Their  numbers  in- 
creased so  rapidly  that  in  1860  the  popula- 
tion of  the  free  States  had  reached  more  than 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     113 

nineteen  millions,  while  that  of  the  slave 
States  was  less  than  thirteen  millions.  The 
leaders  of  the  South  had  sought  to  meet  this 
overwhelming  flood  of  freedom's  hosts. 
First,  they  clothed  themselves  with  a  repre- 
sentation in  Congress  based  on  the  ratio  of 
their  slaves.  Then  they  passed  the  fugitive 
slave  law,  "the  most  cruel  insult  that  was 
ever  offered  by  men  given  over  by  fate  to 
fatuity."  Then  came  the  Kansas  struggle 
and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  finally  the  contemplated  changes  in  the 
Constitution  by  which  slavery  should  be  as 
national  as  liberty.  Dark  times  were  upon 
us  from  1856  to  1860,  when  it  looked  as  if 
God  intended  to  break  this  nation  in  pieces 
to  teach  the  world  the  terrible  guilt  of  hu- 
man bondage.  I  was  but  a  boy  from  ten 
to  fifteen,  but  I  had  drunk  in  the  love  of  lib- 
erty from  the  day  that  my  mother  gave  me 
birth,  and  I  do  not  remember  an  hour  in 
those  dark  days  when  my  soul  was  not  on 
fire  for  the  rights  of  man.  My  parents  were 
anti-slavery  and  our  home  was  a  refuge  for 
many  a  fleeing  slave. 


114    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

In  the  great  contest  that  seated  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
Mr.  Lincoln's  challenge  was  a  summons  to 
battle.  "A  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand,"  he  said.  "I  believe  this  govern- 
ment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union 
to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house 
to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  shall  cease  to  be 
divided."  On  this  issue  he  fought  the  presi- 
dential campaign  of  1860.  Memorable  year ! 
The  nation  had  been  marching  up  to  it  for 
nearly  a  century.  In  November  the  people 
asserted  their  will  at  the  ballot-box  and  by 
one  hundred  and  eighty  votes  out  of  three 
hundred  and  three  in  the  electoral  college, 
freedom  placed  the  invincible  wand  of  power 
in  the  hands  of  that  incomparable  and  in- 
corruptible American  patriot  and  states- 
man, Abraham  Lincoln. 

"Those  whom  the  gods  would  destroy  they 
first  make  mad."  The  South  recklessly  at- 
tacked the  fundamental  principle  of  popu- 
lar government,  that  the  majority  must  rule. 
Again  and  again  the  slave  power  had  elected 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     115 

the  President  by  the  same  processes,  and  the 
law-abiding  people  of  the  North  had  cheer- 
fully accepted  the  will  of  the  people.  But 
when  the  descendants  of  the  yeomen,  of 
Cromwell  and  of  William  of  Orange  elected 
a  man  who  would  do  the  right  as  God  gave 
him  to  see  the  right,  come  what  would,  they 
began  to  fire  on  the  stars  and  stripes  that 
waved  above  the  grim  walls  of  old  Fort 
Sumter.  I  vividly  recall  that  Sunday  morn- 
ing, April  12,  1861,  when  the  news  reached 
me  that  the  flag  had  been  fired  upon.  I  had 
been  taught  that  "my  country's  flag  of  stars" 
represented  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future  of  my  country  itself. 

President  Lincoln,  in  his  first  call  to  the 
loyal  people  of  the  North  for  seventy-five 
thousand  troops,  clearly  set  forth  the  issue 
of  the  impending  struggle.  "I  appeal,"  he 
said,  "to  all  loyal  citizens  to  favor,  facilitate, 
and  aid  this  effort  to  maintain  the  honor, 
the  integrity,  and  existence  of  our  national 
Union,  and  the  perpetuation  of  popular  gov- 
ernment, and  to  redress  the  wrongs  already 
long  enough  endured."    Comrades,  to  that 


116    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

call  some  of  you  responded,  and  the  muster- 
in  song  was  taken  up  all  over  the  North: 

"We  are  gathering  from  the  East, 
We  are  gathering  from  the  West, 
Shouting  the  battle-crj  of  Freedom." 

A  little  later  New  England,  the  Middle 
States,  and  the  West  made  mountain,  valley, 
and  plain,  teeming  city  and  country  village, 
schoolhouse  and  church,  resound  with  re- 
cruiting songs. 

"We  are  coming,  we  are  coming,  the  Union  to 

restore, 
We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  six  hundred 

thousand  more; 
If  you  look  up  all  the  valleys,  where  the  growing 

harvests  shine, 
You  can  see  our  sturdy  farmer  boys  fast  falling 

into  line; 
And  children  from  their  mothers'  knees  are  pull- 
ing at  the  weeds, 
And  learning  how  to  reap  and  sow  against  their 

country's  needs ; 
And  a  farewell  group  stands  weeping  at  every 

cottage  door. 
We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  six  hundred 

thousand  more." 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     117 

Later  still,  company  and  regiment, 
division  and  brigade,  Army  of  the  Potomac 
and  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  shook  the 
nation  with  their  tread  and  song: 

"Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  the  boys  are  marching, 
Cheer  up,  comrades,  they  will  come, 

And  beneath  the  starry  flag 
We  will  breathe  the  air  again 

Of  the  freemen,  in  our  own  beloved  home." 

God  permitted  that  awful  strife  to  con- 
tinue for  four  dreadful  years.  It  cost  the 
government  billions  of  treasure,  and 

"Four  hundred  thousand  men, 
The  brave,  the  good,  the  true, 
On  battlefield,  and  in  prison  pen 

Lie  dead  for  me  and  you,  good  friends, 
Lie  dead  for  me  and  you." 

I  have  briefly  referred  to  these  facts  of 
history  to  make  clear  the  justness  of  the 
statement  that  the  act  of  secession  was  trea- 
son, treason  against  a  government  that  had 
been  patient  and  long  suffering,  submitting 
to  injury  and  insult  rather  than  see  the  coun- 
try plunged  into  civil  war.    It  was  an  assault 


118    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

upon  the  rights  of  man,  the  freedom  of 
speech,  and  the  potency  of  the  ballot.  What 
other  name  can  history  use  when  it  describes 
rightly  the  awful  act  of  firing  upon  Sumter 
but  treason?  Let  it  be  written  and  spoken 
over  and  over,  that  the  children  may  never 
be  in  doubt  that  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
Confederacy  were  in  rebellion  against  the 
country  of  Washington  and  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  and  that  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
his  generals  and  soldiers  were  the  defenders 
of  the  rights  of  man,  the  promoters  of  lib- 
erty, and  the  preservers  of  the  Union. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  the  past.  It 
is  fitting  that  I  dwell  for  a  little  on  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future.  Peace  has  its  dangers 
as  well  as  war.  The  security  of  that  magnifi- 
cent past  ought  to  be  the  foundation  upon 
which  we  will  build  for  all  time.  This  monu- 
ment stands  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  and  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

"The  Union  must  and  shall  be  preserved," 
should  be  made  the  motto  of  every  State  and 
the  password  of  every  organization.  When 
Lee  surrendered  to  Grant  at  Appomattox 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     119 

Courthouse  twenty-nine  years  ago,  it  was 
determined  that  this  American  republic, 
from  Plymouth  Rock  to  Golden  Gate,  from 
where  the  waters  of  the  great  northern  lakes 
dash  themselves  over  the  Niagara  to  where 
the  "Father  of  Waters"  rolls  onward  be- 
neath the  tropical  sun,  shall  forever  consti- 
tute one  country  under  one  flag,  singing  one 
song,  and  the  theme  of  that  flag  and  of  that 
song, 

"A  union  of  lakes,  a  union  of  lands, 
A  union  of  States  none  can  sever, 
A  union  of  hearts,  a  union  of  hands, 
And  the  flag  of  the  Union  forever." 

When  the  war  began,  four  million  human 
beings  were  held  in  bondage  and  sold  like 
cattle.  It  was  Lincoln  who  said:  "Certainly, 
the  black  man  is  not  our  equal  in  color,  and 
perhaps  not  in  many  other  respects;  still, 
in  his  right  to  put  into  his  own  mouth  the 
bread  that  he  earns  with  his  own  hands,  he 
is  equal  to  any  other  man  black  or  white." 
On  January  1,  1863,  the  great  war  Presi- 
dent   signed    the    immortal    Emancipation 


120    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Proclamation,  whereby  the  seal  of  liberty 
was  placed  on  those  millions  of  slaves.  The 
contraband  of  war  became  a  free  man,  a 
soldier,  and  a  citizen;  and  he  must  be  pro- 
tected forever  in  all  his  inalienable  rights  as 
a  loyal  American. 

It  may  be  that  we  old  soldiers  are  over- 
sensitive and  too  suspicious.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  I  shall  stand  guard  while  there  is  a 
solid  South  making  solid  claims  on  the  party 
in  power.  My  comrades,  do  you  know  that 
twenty  of  the  United  States  senators  are 
ex- Confederates,  and  only  ten  are  from  the 
Federal  army?  That  twenty  of  the  ex- Con- 
federate soldiers  are  chairmen  of  committees 
in  the  senate,  and  twenty-two  are  chairmen 
in  the  House?  That  there  are  but  seventy- 
four  Union  soldiers  in  Congress  as  against 
seventy-six  Confederates,  including  Speaker 
Crisp?  These  figures  were  given  by  the 
New  York  Sun. 

We  are  confronted  with  the  most  stupen- 
dous problems  that  ever  appealed  to  any 
government;  "problems,"  says  Gladstone, 
"arising  from  the  complexities  and  the  per- 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     121 

plexities  of  conserving  the  integrity  of 
modern  civilization.  From  the  sub-arctic 
lands  of  Iceland  to  the  shores  of  the  Helles- 
pont, from  the  Spanish  peninsula  to  the 
mountains  of  the  Caucasus,  there  is  not  a 
nation,  not  a  tribe  or  people,  but  is  sending 
its  mighty  contingent,  wasted  by  despotism 
and  corrupted  by  vice,  into  the  Eastern  por- 
tions of  the  continent,  while  the  celestials, 
nonassimilative,  are  thundering  at  the  West- 
ern portals  and  forcing  admission."  Our 
population  has  grown  from  less  than  forty 
million  to  more  than  sixty-five  million,  since 
the  war.  George  Bancroft  was  born  when 
we  had  but  five  million;  when  he  died  we 
had  sixty-five  million.  Joseph  Cook  says 
that  in  the  year  2000  we  will  have  some 
four  hundred  million,  while  Mr.  Glad- 
stone puts  it  at  eight  hundred  million. 
Formerly  we  received  the  very  best  elements 
of  all  nationalities.  It  does  seem  now  that 
in  a  large  measure,  we  are  getting  down  to 
the  very  dregs.  We  have  made  ourselves 
the  Botany  Bay  of  the  world.  Some  one 
has  said:  "There  is  danger  that  our  boasted 


122    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

republic  shall  become  one  vast  menagerie, 
with  the  beasts  not  caged;  and  presently 
these  hordes  gathered  from  the  slums  of  all 
lands  march  to  the  polls,  full-fledged  citi- 
zens, and  elect  the  President  of  the  United 
States."  Over  our  country's  doorway  we 
should  from  this  hour  write  in  broad  letters 
which  may  shine  over  all  the  world,  "No 
anarchist  need  apply."  Many  of  those  who 
come  to  us  make  patriotic  and  useful  citi- 
zens. I  have  not  forgotten  the  Irishman 
who  fought  under  General  Meagher  nor  the 
German  who  followed  the  brave  Sigel.  I 
welcome  any  decent  element  from  any  coun- 
try if  he  comes  here  to  become  a  loyal  Ameri- 
can. That  wise  thinker  Chauncey  Depew 
has  well  said:  "We  can  still  welcome  those 
who  will  add  to  our  strength  and  assist  in 
the  development  of  our  resources,  but  we 
should  rigidly  inquire  who  these  immigrants 
are  and  for  what  purpose  they  come.  We 
are  no  longer  in  need  of  the  surplus  popula- 
tion of  the  Old  World,  and  should  thus  care- 
fully examine  our  guests.  We  quarantine 
cholera,  yellow  fever,   and   smallpox,   and 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     123 

we  ought  to  have  a  national  department  of 
political  health,  empowered  to  search  for 
paupers  and  criminals,  and  by  summary 
procedure  seize  the  open  and  blatant  ene- 
mies of  our  government  who  are  not  citizens 
and  send  them  home." 

Public  School 

This  monument  stands  for  intelligent  citi- 
zenship and  the  public  school. 

Our  republic  is  dependent  upon  the  will 
of  the  people;  therefore  an  intelligent  peo- 
ple alone  can  maintain  it.  The  life  of  the 
nation  is  impossible  if  the  schoolhouse  be  not 
free  to  all.  Whoever  is  an  enemy  of  the 
public  schools  is  an  enemy  of  our  country, 
be  he  Methodist,  Romanist,  Christian,  or 
infidel.  "Home  shall  teach  obedience,  the 
church  shall  teach  religion,  but  the  public 
school  shall  teach  the  knowledge  of  patriot- 
ism to  the  state  at  the  expense  of  the  state, 
and  no  influence  must  interfere. " 

General  Grant,  addressing  the  Army  of 
the  Tennessee  at  a  reunion  in  1876,  said: 
"If  there  is  going  to  be  another  battle  in 


124    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

the  near  future  of  our  national  existence, 
the  dividing  line  will  not  be  Mason  and 
Dixon's.  .  .  .  That  dividing  line  will  be 
patriotism  and  intelligence  on  the  one  hand, 
and  ignorance  and  superstition  on  the 
other."  He  added:  "Cultivate,  as  you  love 
America,  free  speech,  free  press,  free  schools, 
free  religion,  keep  church  and  state  distinct, 
or  the  time  may  come  when  our  republic  will 
fall  through  the  apathy  of  its  citizens." 
Some  of  you  followed  the  lead  of  this  silent 
hero  to  Corinth,  Shiloh,  Vicksburg,  Chatta- 
nooga, and  the  Wilderness  and  on  to  Ap- 
pomattox. Will  you  obey  and  teach  your 
children  to  obey  the  great  commander  con- 
cerning the  public  school,  as  "the  high  tower, 
the  thick  wall  and  the  moated  gate  of  the 
republic"? 

I  quote  again  from  that  clear  thinker  and 
patriotic  citizen  Mr.  Depew:  "Ignorance 
judges  the  invisible  by  the  visible.  Turn 
on  the  lights.  Teach,  first  and  last,  Ameri- 
canism. Let  no  youth  be  permitted  to  leave 
the  public  school  without  being  thoroughly 
grounded  in  the  history,  the  principles  and 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     125 

the  incalculable  blessings  of  American  lib- 
erty. Let  the  boys  be  trained  soldiers  of 
constitutional  freedom,  the  girls  the  intelli- 
gent mothers  of  freemen,  and  the  sons  of 
the  anarchist  will  become  the  bulwark  of 
the  law." 

Patriotism  and  the  Flag 

This  monument  stands  for  patriotism  and 
the  flag. 

"Breathes  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said, 
'This  is  my  own,  my  native  land?'  " 

The  need  of  America  to-day  is  intelligent 
patriotism — a  patriotism  that  watches  over 
every  interest  of  the  republic.  Therefore 
patriotism  and  the  public  school  should 
march  hand  in  hand  down  the  ages,  teaching 
the  history  and  principles  of  our  govern- 
ment to  every  child,  while  over  every  school- 
house  waves  the  American  flag.  I  would 
have  our  thirteen  million1  children  of  public 
school  children  declaim  and  write  of  our 

1  Census  of  1916  showed  over  20,000.000  enrolled. 


126    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

heroes  and  our  wars,  and  sing  daily  with 
rapturous  joy: 

"My  country,  'tis  of  thee, 
Sweet  land  of  liberty, 

Of  thee  I  sing. 
Land  where  my  fathers  died, 
Land  of  the  pilgrims'  pride, 
From  every  mountain-side 
Let  freedom  ring!" 

There  is  room  in  this  country  for  only  one 
flag,  and  "Old  Glory"  must  lead  the  proces- 
sion. This  blood-consecrated  banner  is  the 
symbol  of  our  nation's  honor.  It  must  float 
in  the  breeze  without  a  rival.  We  should 
forbid  the  carrying  of  any  flag,  banner,  or 
transparency  in  public  processions  except 
the  glorious  stars  and  stripes.  We  want  no 
orange  flags,  no  red  flags,  no  green  flags,  no 
black  flags,  waving  over  our  children.  Let 
there  float  upon  the  American  breeze  forever 
one  flag  only; 

"  'Tis  the  star-spangled  banner !     0  long  may  it 
wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the 
brave !" 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     127 

Let  the  rising  generation  be  taught  to 
love  it,  to  invest  it  with  all  the  history  it 
suggests,  and  to  cherish  as  one  of  the  lasting 
utterances  of  the  Civil  War,  General  Dix's 
immortal  order:  "If  any  man  attempts  to 
haul  down  the  American  flag,  shoot  him  on 
the  spot." 

Law  and  Order 

This  monument  stands  for  law  and  order. 

How  are  the  sixty-five  million  of  to-day 
and  the  four  hundred  million  of  the  next 
century  to  be  governed  ?  There  are  but  two 
answers  to  the  question;  first,  by  force  of 
arms;  second,  by  the  force  of  moral  senti- 
ment that  is  obedient  to  law.  As  to  the  first 
answer,  a  people  who  have  enjoyed  the  lib- 
erty of  self-government  for  a  hundred  years 
or  more  will  never  submit  to  the  iron  rule 
of  a  military  despotism.  Therefore  we  must 
govern  ourselves,  hence  the  necessity  of 
good  will  back  of  the  law.  That  there 
exists  throughout  our  country  a  widespread 
and  growing  discontent  is  too  obvious  to  re- 
quire more  than  a  hint.    The  culmination  of 


128    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

a  crisis  may  be  delayed,  but  it  is  sure  to  reach 
us  sooner  or  later,  unless  turned  aside.  It 
is  not  the  time  for  hasty,  reckless,  inflamma- 
tory speeches ;  neither  is  it  time  to  be  silent. 
If  the  country  is  in  peril — and  the  God  of 
our  fathers  must  know  that  it  is — then  it 
becomes  our  duty  to  speak  and  act  as  in- 
telligent, law-abiding  freemen.  Shall  we 
be  deaf  to  the  wail  of  the  millions  that  are 
crying  for  bread?  Shall  we  continue  an 
administration  and  a  Congress  that  seem  to 
be  so  heartlessly  indifferent  to  the  appeals 
of  the  suffering  millions  ?  Shall  we  approve 
of  courts  and  executives  whose  treatment  of 
peaceable  and  law-abiding  citizens  is  unjust 
and  un-American?  Shall  we  sit  supinely 
still  and  see  our  country  wrecked  to  ruin? 
Such  a  course  would  render  us  unworthy  to 
strew  flowers  over  the  graves  of  our  com- 
rades or  dedicate  this  monument  to  their 
memory.  We  are  not  slaves.  We  are  free 
men,  "who  know  their  rights,  and  knowing 
dare  maintain."  We  are  not  subjects  of  a 
despot  who  knows  no  law  but  his  own  will. 
We  are  Americans,  with  the  blood  of  an- 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     129 

cestors  who  fought  at  Runnymede,  Naseby, 
Bunker  Hill,  and  Gettysburg  running  in  our 
veins.  Let  us  solemnly  see  to  it  that  there 
is  some  little  government  "for  the  people 
and  by  the  people"  at  Washington.  Our 
legislators  have  been  in  session  at  the  na- 
tion's capital  almost  continuously  for  ten 
months,  and  the  condition  of  the  common 
people  and  country  at  large  has  become 
worse  each  succeeding  day,  and  yet  Congress 
lifts  not  a  finger  except  to  please  the  trusts 
and  conciliate  the  money  power.  But,  my 
countrymen,  my  appeal  is  not  to  arms.  We 
must  bow  to  the  supremacy  of  the  law,  obey 
the  orders  of  the  judiciary,  and  regard  the 
official  acts  of  the  Executive,  whether  just 
or  unjust.  To  us  is  given  the  potency  of 
the  ballot,  the  exponent  of  free  men's  will, 
and  therein  lies  our  peaceful  resort.  We 
must  see  to  it  at  the  polls  that  power  is 
placed  in  the  hands  of  true  Americans,  who 
in  some  degree  are  worthy  to  occupy  the 
chair  of  the  immortal  Lincoln,  "the  rail- 
splitter";  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  "the  tanner"; 
and  Charles  Sumner,  the  "uncorruptible." 


130    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Herein  lies  the  real  remedy.  While  with 
all  my  heart  I  sympathize  with  the  op- 
pressed, and  the  multitudes  out  of  employ- 
ment, I  promise  high  heaven  I  will  stand 
by  the  common  people  if  unjustly  assailed 
or  treated.  Nevertheless,  I  want  to  say  that 
notwithstanding  all  the  frets  to  which  the 
laboring  class  is  subjected,  there  is  no  law 
for  material  or  force  revolution.  No  upris- 
ing to  destroy  person  or  property  can  be 
tolerated  in  this  country.  All  of  us  must 
obey  the  laws,  and  peacefully  wait  till  our 
ballots,  which  are  more  potent  than  bullets, 
shall  change  them  if  they  are  wrong. 

In  closing  I  turn  from  these  gloomy  fore- 
bodings of  the  present  to  a  glorious  future. 
I  am  not  a  visionary  optimist,  for  I  can  see 
danger  and  plan  to  meet  it.  I  am  not  an 
imbecile  pessimist,  for  I  am  willing  to  help 
conquer  the  perils  without  fear  or  favor.  I 
believe  in  the  future  of  this  great  land.  I 
believe  that  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  will  find  its  sublimest  political  illustra- 
tion in  the  perpetuity  of  this  republic.  In 
the  language  of  Daniel  Webster:  "We  shall 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     131 

live  and  not  die.  The  ill-omened  sounds  of 
fanaticisms  shall  cease.  The  ghastly  spec- 
ters of  secession  and  disunion  shall  disap- 
pear, and  the  enemies  of  united  constitu- 
tional liberty,  if  their  hatred  cannot  be  ap- 
peased, may  prepare  to  have  their  eyeballs 
seared  as  they  behold  the  steady  flight  of 
the  American  eagle  on  burnished  wings  for 
years  and  years  to  come." 

On  a  certain  occasion  Henry  Clay 
climbed  with  some  friends  the  heights  of  the 
Alleghanies,  and  went  out  on  a  projecting 
crag.  Looking  toward  the  valley  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  prairie  lands  of  the  West,  as 
yet  all  silent  and  desolate,  he  was  seen  in- 
clining his  head  as  if  listening  to  far-away 
sounds. 

"What  hearest  thou,  Senator?"  said  his 
friend. 

"Hear?"  responded  the  great  statesmen. 
"I  hear  the  thundering  tread  of  the  coming 
millions  that  will  ascend  these  mountains, 
descend  into  these  valleys,  and  hold  these 
prairies  away  and  away  and  away  to  the 
setting  sun." 


132    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Fellow  Americans,  standing  here  to-day 
in  the  memory  of  the  monumental  facts  of 
the  past  history  of  our  country,  remember- 
ing the  way  by  which  God  has  led  us,  I  seem 
to  hear  the  coming  of  the  millions  of  freemen 
on  this  continent,  gathered  from  every  zone 
on  earth,  of  every  race  and  tongue;  proud, 
intelligent,  patriotic  inhabitants  of  our  great 
heritage.  It  is  the  anthem  of  a  homogeneous 
people  of  many  origins,  and  so  all  sounds 
mingle  in  harmony — the  woodman's  ax 
clearing  giant  forests,  the  rattle  of  the  reaper 
gathering  golden  grain,  the  hum  of  ma- 
chinery manufacturing  home  industries,  the 
whistle  of  the  engine,  breaking  the  long 
silence  of  mountain  and  valley,  the  rever- 
berating blast  significant  of  the  earth  giving 
up  her  vast  treasures,  the  cheer  of  loving 
women  and  the  shouts  of  happy  children, 
mingling  their  voices  with  stalwart  men  in 
home  and  church  and  school  and  market — 
all  in  spirit  and  tune  with  the  national  hymn : 

"Our  fathers'  God,  to  thee, 
Author  of  liberty, 
To  thee  we  sing; 


DEDICATORY  ADDRESS     133 

Long  may  our  land  be  bright 
With  freedom's  holy  light; 
Protect  us  by  thy  might, 
Great  God,  our  King." 

After  darkness,  Light! 


IX 

CONTEMPORARIES  AND 
COWORKERS 


Oh,  call  my  brother  back  to  me ! 

I  cannot  play  alone: 
The  summer  comes  with  flower  and  bee — 

Where  is  my  brother  gone  ? 

— Felicia  D.  Hemans. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CONTEMPORARIES  AND 
COWORKERS 

Since  this  narrative  should  be  history  de- 
pendable and  intended  for  a  place  among 
our  ecclesiastical  archives,  it  is  only  proper 
that  the  names  of  the  men  and  the  women 
who  were  employed  by  him  in  Utah  should 
be  given.  The  names  of  the  stations  opened 
and  maintained  are  also  herein  recorded  so 
far  as  known. 

There  was  a  short  period  of  history  made 
before  he  became  the  superintendent,  for 
Utah  was  originally  a  portion  of  the  mighty 
Rocky  Mountain  Conference  which  covered 
the  Territories  of  Montana,  Idaho,  Utah, 
and  a  little  of  the  western  side  of  the  Terri- 
tory of  Wyoming.  It  was  thought  when  the 
Conference  was  organized  that  Evanston 
was  in  Utah;  for  that  reason  it  was  named 
in  the  list  of  the  first  appointments. 
137 


138    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Bishop  Foster  presided  over  his  first  Con- 
ference in  Utah;  this  was  in  1872. 

The  men  appointed  at  the  first  session  of 
the  Rocky  Mountain  Conference  at  Salt 
Lake  City,  August  8,  1872,  included  some 
other  builders.  Robert  M.  Guinn  was  sent 
as  pioneer  to  Boise  City,  and  others  yet  to 
be  known  for  their  executive  ability  were 
on  that  list.  Among  them  was  James  M. 
Jameson,  of  the  Ohio  Conference.  He  was 
sent  to  Corinne. 

When  Mr.  Iliff  took  charge  of  the  Utah 
work  as  superintendent  in  1882,  it  was  not 
his  first  Utah  experience,  for  he  had  been 
presiding  elder  of  the  Beaver  District  from 
1876  on  to  1880,  with  residence  in  Salt  Lake. 
In  1880  the  General  Conference  at  Cincin- 
nati had  changed  Utah's  status  from  a  Con- 
ference to  a  mission.  The  roster  of  his  first 
men  is  here  given.  Bishop  Hurst,  presid- 
ing, read  off:  Beaver,  Erastus  Smith; 
Corinne,  A.  W.  Adkinson ;  Frisco,  to  be  sup- 
plied; Ogden,  A.  W.  Adkinson;  Provo,  G. 
E.  Jayne;  Salt  Lake,  T.  C.  Iliff;  Tooele,  J. 
P.  Morris  and  E.  Smith. 


CONTEMPORARIES  139 

All  these  but  their  superintendent  still 
live. 

Schools  were  maintained  as  follows: 
Salt  Lake  Seminary,  T.  B.  Hilton,  T.  W. 

Lincoln,  and  wife;  Miss  Mary  C.  Whee- 

lock. 
Ogden  Seminary,  A.  W.  Adkinson,  Miss 

Rebecca  Daly,  Miss  Lizzie  Stevens. 
Tooele,  J.  P.  Morris  and  wife. 
Beaver,  E.  Smith. 
G.  M.  Peirce,  former  superintendent,  resided 

inactive  in  Salt  Lake  City. 

This  list  of  charges  gradually  but  steadily 
growing  under  his  masterful  hand,  reached 
in  1898  the  proportions  of  three  districts 
with  thirty  appointments  as  follows: 

Provo  District,  G.  E.  Jayne,  P.  E. 

Beaver  and  Milford.  Park  City. 

Bingham  Canyon.  Payson  and  Mount 

Eureka    and    Silver  Nebo. 

City.  Provo. 

Heber.  Spanish  Fork. 

Mercur  and  Ophir.  Tooele    and    Stock- 

Nephi  and  Levan.  ton. 


140    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 


Richfield  District,  E.  E.  Mork,  P.  E. 

Ephraim  and  Spring  Provo    and    Santa- 
City,  quin. 

Hyrum  and  Logan.  Richfield  and  Elsi- 

Monroe  and  Marys-  nore. 

vale.  Salt       Lake       and 

Mt.  Pleasant.  Brigham. 

Salt  Lake  District,  T.  C.  Iliff,  P.  E. 


Corinne. 

Salt  Lake,  First. 

Logan. 

Heath. 

Murray. 

Iliff. 

Ogden,  First. 

Liberty 

Mission. 

Park. 

Price. 

Second. 

Vernal. 

The  maximum  number  of  schools  was  six- 
teen, and  they  were  located  at  Beaver,  Ben- 
son, Brigham,  Elsinore,  Ephraim,  Grants- 
ville,  Grassvalley,  Heber,  Hyrum,  Levan, 
Moroni,  Mt.  Pleasant,  Murray,  Nephi,  Ox- 
ford, Payson,  Provo,  Richfield,  Salt  Lake, 
Santaquin,  Spanish  Fork,  Spring  City, 
Stockton,  Tooele,  and  Weston. 


CONTEMPORARIES  141 

These  were  the  ministers  who  served  the 
various  charges  in  this  period : 

Martin  Anderson,  A.  W.  Adkinson,  F. 
J.  Bradley,  W.  J.  Bonham,  N.  Bascom,  F. 
Brock,  W.  K.  Beans,  J.  D.  Bird. 

G.  W.  Cohagan,  E.  E.  Carr,  W.  C.  Culp, 
S.  J.  Carroll,  W.  Carver,  A.  B.  Clucker 
(Glockner),  W.  M.  Crowther,  George  R. 
W.  V.  Comer,  J.  G.  Clark,  N.  Christopher- 
son,  O.  Christenson,  S.  Cates,  C.  H.  Camp- 
bell. 

W.  C.  Damon,  M.  DeMotte,  C.  E.  De 
La  Matyr,  E.  P.  F.  Dearborn. 

P.  A.  H.  Franklin,  D.  J.  Frew,  H.  D. 
Fisher,  J.  H.  Fitzwater,  G.  P.  Fry,  J.  H. 
Frazier. 

J.  J.  Garvin,  W.  W.  Glanville,  E.  C. 
Graff,  J.  D.  Gillilan. 

L.  Hartsough,  founder  of  the  Mission,  H. 
Hammer,  T.  J.  Hooper,  S.  Hooper,  A.  W. 
Hartshorn,  R.  M.  Hardman,  E.  G.  Hunt, 
D.  T.  Hedges,  J.  W.  Hill,  Nils  L.  Han- 
son, Hans  I.  Hansen,  J.  M.  Hanson,  C.  J. 
Heckner,  W.  A.  Hunter,  W.  B.  Hyde,  M. 
Howison,  A.  H.  Henry. 


142    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

G.  E.  Jayne,  T.  Johns,  G.  M.  Jeffrey, 
H.  A.  Jones,  J.  W.  Jones,  H.  Johnsen,  J. 
M.  Jameson,  N.  P.  Johnson. 

J.  E.  Kirbye. 

T.  W.  Lincoln,  C.  L.  Libbey,  S.  P.  Long- 
street,  L.  W.  B.  Long,  C.  P.  Lyford,  F.  N. 
Lapham. 

C.  McCoard,  J.  M.  Eldowney,  J.  P. 
Morris,  E.  E.  Mork,  W.  D.  Mabry,  G.  P. 
Miller,  W.  Murphy,  G.  E.  Morse,  G.  L. 
Marvin. 

Martinus  Nelson. 

Lars  Olson. 

P.  A.  Paulson,  G.  M.  Peirce,  J.  T.  Pierce, 
H.  W.  Parker,  J.  F.  Price. 

L.  A.  Rudisill,  G.  W.  Rich,  W.  J.  Rich- 
ards. 

D.  G.  Strong,  C.  C.  Stratton,  E.  Smith, 
R.  T.  Smith,  H.  N.  Staalberg,  E.  H.  Snow, 
H.  L.  Steves,  R.  L.  Steed,  E.  C.  Strout, 
H.  Skewes,  C.  Smith,  F.  S.  Stein,  Joel  A. 
Smith. 

J.  Telfer,  J.  E.  Turner,  S.  W.  Thornton, 
N.  P.  Tedrick,  O.  O.  Tweede,  J.  W.  Tay- 
lor. 


CONTEMPORARIES  143 

J.  Wilks,  McG.  G.  Waynick,  J.  Waaler, 
J.  D.  Wasson,  J.  H.  Worrall. 

"Some  of  these  have  crossed  the  flood, 
And  some  are  crossing  now." 

Some  of  these  went  elsewhere  after  a  term 
of  years  in  the  Mission  and  came  to  honor 
in  other  Conferences.  Some  wore  out,  and 
others  finding  their  efforts  so  little  appreci- 
ated by  the  people  to  whom  they  gave  their 
labors,  went  into  secular  business.  But  one, 
E.  E.  Mork,  stays  still  by  the  stuff. 

The  Administrator 
As  administrator  he  companied  with  his 
men  and  women  as  true  cooperators,  show- 
ing neither  by  word  or  manner  that  he  held 
a  position  above  them.  Yet  he  was  never 
so  familiar  as  to  cause  any  of  them  to  forget 
that  he  was  a  commander,  though  this  did 
not  unclass  him  with  them.  Isolated  so  com- 
pletely from  all  nearby  church  authority,  the 
Utah  Mission  was  under  his  almost  absolute 
control,  the  mobility  of  the  Methodist  sys- 
tem being  such  that  it  admitted,  even  then, 
the  exercise  of  almost  unlimited  authority; 


144    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

but  by  this  superintendent  it  was  never 
abused. 

He  understood  democracy  to  mean  such 
masterful  manipulation  of  the  Golden  Rule 
as  will  cause  the  people  among  whom  we 
move  not  to  be  obliged  to  think  out  the  fact 
that  we  are  only  equals.  This  rule  he 
sedulously  practiced,  magnanimous  to  the 
confession  of  a  fault;  always  ready  to  go 
more  than  half  way  to  effect  a  reconciliation, 
all  the  way  if  necessary. 

No  night  was  too  dark,  no  trail  too  long, 
no  task  too  hard  in  any  appearance  to  deter 
him  in  his  undertaking  to  help  anyone  in 
need.  His  many  endeavors  to  do  good  were 
limited  only  by  his  inability  to  reach  them 
in  want. 

The  children  of  the  households  where  he 
visited  were  forever  his  chums.  His  love  for 
them  was  not  more  perfunctory  than  was 
ti*eir  welcome. 

Some  Stage  Experiences  That  Were 
Not  Staged 

In  the  days  of  the  nation-makers  the  un- 


CONTEMPORARIES  145 

expected  was  ever  and  forever  the  expected. 
The  traveler  took  his  gun  in  one  hand  and 
his  life  in  the  other. 

Many  are  the  now  seemingly  semi- weird 
stories  that  can  be  filched  from  the  early  par- 
ticipators in  them,  specially  such  as  relate 
to  occurrences  which  smack  of  the  bravado 
sort.  Most  of  the  narrators  modestly  decline 
relating  them  because  of  the  personal  refer- 
ence necessary  to  the  complete  tale.  Mrs. 
Iliff  has  such  a  fine  fund  of  them,  but  she 
is  like  the  others :  must  be  almost  cross-ques- 
tioned in  order  to  obtain  them.  "O,  I  do 
not  like  to  talk  about  myself,"  say  she  and 
they. 

Here  is  a  little  coterie  of  recitals  obtained 
from  her  by  the  writer : 

"On  that  memorable  wedding  trip  from 
Corinne,  Utah,  to  Montana,  made  wholly 
by  stagecoach,  while  going  through  Port 
Neuf  Canyon,  near  where  Pocatello  now 
stands,  we  saw  at  some  distance  ahead  of 
us  two  or  three  men  who  were  riding  in  our 
direction  horseback.  The  driver  thought  he 
recognized  them   as   'road   agents,'   as   the 


146    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

common  highway  robber  was  styled.  He  at 
once  turned  his  horses  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion and  made  for  the  home  station  five  miles 
behind  us,  the  one  we  had  but  just  left,  and 
nothing  could  induce  him  to  budge  until  day- 
light. In  our  party  was  a  middle-aged 
gentleman  accompanied  by  his  wife;  they 
were  from  Philadelphia.  He  carried  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money  which  he  was  plan- 
ning to  invest  in  Montana  mines.  When  our 
scare  came  he  was  the  most  excited  man  on 
the  stage,  and  it  was  very  interesting  to  see 
him  stuffing  the  rolls  of  bills  down  into  his 
shoes;  and  as  we  were  not  burdened  with 
greenbacks  we  succeeded  pretty  well  in 
maintaining  our  equilibrium. 

"On  another  occasion  we  were  on  our  way 
from  Bozeman  to  Salt  Lake  City  for  Con- 
ference, and  had  stopped  over  at  Fort  Hall 
Indian  Agency  to  spend  Sunday  with  Dr. 
Reid,  the  agent,  an  old  friend.  Monday 
night  when  we  were  to  start  there  was  just 
one  vacant  seat  in  the  stage.  Mr.  Iliff  must 
go  for  his  Conference  examinations;  so  Dr. 
Reid  and  myself  waited  till  the  next  eve- 


CONTEMPORARIES  147 

ning.  Imagine  our  surprise  to  learn  that  the 
driver  who  should  have  taken  us  was  held 
up  the  night  before  and  killed ;  and  we  could 
look  up  and  see  the  bullet  holes  in  the  top 
of  the  stagecoach.  This  was  'life  in  the  Far 
West'  of  those  days. 

"At  one  time  Mr.  Iliff  was  sitting  on  the 
porch  of  a  hotel  at  Nephi,  Utah,  when  a 
drunken  man  rode  up  and  demanded  of  the 
proprietor  a  good  dinner.  That  worthy  re- 
fused so  modest  a  request  and  ran  upstairs 
and  hid  in  a  room,  locking  the  door.  He 
then  accosted  Mr.  Iliff  and  held  the  gun  in 
his  face,  but  did  not  discharge  it.  He  was 
afterward  convicted  on  the  minister's  testi- 
mony and  sent  to  the  penitentiary. 

"In  the  early  days  Mr.  Iliff  went  heavily 
armed  through  dangers  seen  and  possibly 
many  unseen." 


X 

CHARACTERISTICS 


"If  he  could  not  help  a  friend,  he  would  lie  down 
beside  him." — Anonymous. 

This  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a 
sterile  promontory;  this  most  excellent  canopy, 
the  air,  look  you,  this  brave  o'erhanging  firma- 
ment, this  majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden 
fire,  why,  it  appears  no  other  thing  to  me  than  a 
foul  and  pestilential  congregation  of  vapors. 

What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man!  how  noble  in 
reason !  how  infinite  in  faculty !  in  form  and  mov- 
ing how  express  and  admirable!  in  action  how 
like  an  angel!  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god! — 
Shakespeare. 

For  the  glory  of  the  Creator  and  the  relief  of 
man's  estate. — Bacon. 


CHAPTER  X 
CHARACTERISTICS 

Many  tasks  could  be  more  difficult  than 
that  of  filling  a  large  volume  with  incidents 
of  Dr.  IlifT's  life.  This  one  is  permitted 
because  of  its  true  delineation  of  his  ener- 
getic determination  to  force  success  where 
circumstances  would  deter  the  ordinary- 
man. 

He  was  an  ardent  disciple  of  Izaak  Wal- 
ton in  things  piscatorial  at  least.  He  knew 
for  unnumbered  miles  of  the  inter-Rocky 
Mountain  country  just  where  and  just  when 
to  look  for  the  lair  of  the  speckled  beauty- 
known  generally  as  the  trout.  It  is  not 
every  fisherman  who  can  at  any  hour  of  the 
day  lure  the  tricky  trout  from  his  pool 
where,  spiderlike,  he  lies  in  wait  for  the 
toothsome  moth  or  other  dawdler  about  the 
well-watched  surface  of  his  watery  area. 
Every  kind  of  fly  may  be  used  from  the 
151 


152    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

dullest  black  gnat  to  the  fieriest  coachman; 
and  Mr.  Trout  will  wag  his  lazy  tail  and 
pretend  not  to  see  the  bait  the  angler  is  sure 
is  so  seductive.  It  is  at  such  times  that  many 
a  man  who  claims  direct  descent  from  the 
patient  Job  discovers  to  his  disgust  that  he 
has  not  enough  patience  for  such  angry 
trials.  What  can  be  more  annoying  than 
to  have  the  knowledge  that  a  certain  hole  had 
beauties  galore,  be  able  indeed,  to  see  them 
darting  and  glancing  in  the  sunlight,  yet  not 
get  a  single  strike! 

On  one  particular  day  the  fish  all  seemed 
to  be  well  fed  on  something  more  real  than 
the  imitation  fly  that  Dr.  Iliff  cast,  and  cared 
nothing  for  any  one  in  his  book,  although  he 
tried  them  all.  They  evidently  had  con- 
spired against  him,  had  gone  on  a  strike,  or 
else  had  dined  away  from  home.  They 
affected  to  despise  his  every  effort  and 
thwarted  his  skill,  while  hour  after  hour  he 
noiselessly  as  possible  swished  the  silken  line 
over  the  purling  riffles,  or  beyond  his  eye  to 
some  dimpling  eddy;  but  all  to  no  purpose, 
except  to  produce  a  self -taunting  which  he 


CHARACTERISTICS  153 

could  not  well  endure.  To  be  defeated  by 
a  simple  trout!  His  arm  was  aching;  per- 
spiration oozed  plentifully  from  many  a 
pore.  The  sun  was  descending  and  the 
tapering  firs  cast  long  and  longer  shadows 
over  the  boiling,  churning  waters,  the  perfect 
home  of  the  elusive  rainbow  trout. 

He  seldom  accepted  defeat  as  a  member 
of  his  company.  He  was  not  easily  dis- 
heartened. He  believed  always  that  if  suc- 
cess did  not  attend  his  efforts  he  was  not 
doing  his  best.  On  this  occasion  he  was  de- 
termined not  to  be  downed.  At  last  espying 
an  eddying  pool  far  across  a  deep  part  of 
the  rapid  stream,  he  made  a  long  cast,  and 
the  hovering  fly  alighted  by  a  circling  is- 
land of  flaky  foam ;  no  salmon  fly  could  have 
made  a  more  delicate  and  perfectly  natural 
descent.  Scarcely  waiting  for  the  snare  to 
reach  the  water,  a  monster  rainbow  that  had 
been  long  expecting  such  visitant  leaped 
from  the  water  and  nabbed  the  alluring 
camouflage,  at  the  same  time  turning  to  dart 
behind  some  tree-roots  that  extended  into 
the  deeper  hollows  of  the  pool. 


154    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Our  fisherman  saw  the  red  sides  of  the 
quick  trout  and  knew  he  had  hooked  a  prize ; 
but  the  quarry  was  not  his  as  yet,  although 
at  the  end  of  his  line,  and  the  reel  was  spin- 
ning with  a  beautiful  "whir-r-r-r."  He 
tried  to  dislodge  the  gay  animal  from  the 
mesh  of  roots,  but  the  result  was  hopeless 
entanglement.  Unless  something  were 
done  more  quickly  than  this  is  being  told,  the 
leader  or  line  would  break  and  the  victim 
escape.  Had  it  been  open  water,  nothing 
would  have  afforded  him  more  particular  or 
more  rapturous  delight  than  to  have  given 
his  quarry  the  line  and  played  him  until  he 
became  exhausted  or  had  committed  suicide 
by  drowning,  which  a  trout  can  do  if 
properly  hooked.  But  something  must  be 
done  quickly;  an  afternoon's  fishing  must 
not  be  defeated  by  the  loss  of  so  fine  a  speci- 
men which  itself  fully  recompenses.  Find- 
ing no  hope  from  so  long  a  distance,  he  took 
his  knife  from  his  pocket,  placed  it  between 
his  teeth,  doffed  his  clothing  and  plunged 
into  that  seething  cauldron  of  water,  almost 
ice-cold,  and  struck  out  swimming  for  the 


CHARACTERISTICS  155 

captive  and  entangled  trout.  He  cut  the 
root  that  held  his  prey  and  was  well  re- 
warded; not  so  much  by  the  fine  trout,  but 
by  the  victory. 

This  exciting  experience  was  but  a  sign 
of  his  insuppressible  trait  of  character. 
Truly,  he  was  not  fishing  for  trout  alone. 
He  was  testing  his  skill  and  proving  his 
ability  to  attract,  catch,  and  save  men. 
Many  a  young  prodigal  in  the  new  West, 
far  from  the  home  of  pure  parents,  Dr.  Iliff 
trailed  with  all  sorts  of  bait  by  way  of  in- 
ducement to  cause  them  to  take  his  hook. 
He  cast  again  and  again,  tired  but  untiring, 
until  from  some  far-off  nook,  and  in  a  far- 
off  way  the  trailed  one  took  the  fly  only  to 
attempt  to  escape  when  once  hooked.  Then 
it  was  that  this  brother  of  all  men,  without 
fear  for  his  reputation,  would  dive  into  the 
turgid  and  dangerous  pool,  some  maelstrom 
where  the  tangled  one  was  in  dire  and  direct 
danger,  whatever  the  purlieu  of  iniquity,  and 
rescue  the  falling  fellow  man. 

Thomas  C.  Iliff  was  ever  a  fisher  of  men, 
a  true  and  lineal  descendant  of  Saint  Peter. 


156    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Every  person  has  his  Mount  of  Vision, 
his  hour  of  decision,  as  well  as  his  precrucial 
Gethsemane,  where,  as  with  Jacob  at  Jabbok 
and  Jesus  by  Kedron,  victories  alone  with 
God  are  gained,  decisions  that  are  dated, 
fixed,  and  made  irrevocable.  Iliff  had  his, 
whose  dates  and  places  only  he  and  the 
Father  knew. 

He  was  a  high  and  worthy  exponent  and 
exemplar  of  the  meaning  of  that  rare 
quality,  Christian  socialism:  he  was  brother 
to  every  one,  most  specially  him  whom  he 
found  willing  to  accept  and  share  his  spon- 
taneous spirit. 

He  could  fight  and  would  fight  honor- 
ably, but  would  never  quarrel.  Once  a  ques- 
tion of  principle  was  settled  he  would  not 
permit  a  reopening  of  it.  It  was  in  a  rail- 
way train  that  a  loud-mouthed  fellow  voiced 
his  opinions  in  the  lauding  of  the  South  and 
the  "lost  cause"  in  general,  making  as  if 
he  would  be  glad  and  willing  to  fight  the 
Civil  War  over  again.  His  braggadocio 
manner  at  last  became  so  irritating  that  a 
peacemaker  was  needed.    Dr.  Iliff,  a  most 


CHARACTERISTICS  157 

impatient  listener,  descended  to  the  needs  of 
the  painful  occasion  and  approached  the 
noisy  man;  in  a  voice  sufficiently  loud  to  be 
heard  by  the  annoyed  assemblage  he  said: 
"Excuse  me,  sir,  you  appear  the  essence  of 
bravery  and  patriotism.  I  wish  to  ask  of 
you  if  you  were  in  the  late  war  of  which  you 
speak  so  eloquently." 

"No,  I  was  not,"  retorted  the  bully. 

"Well,  I  was,"  said  the  peacemaking  doc- 
tor, "and  it  took  all  the  fight  out  of  me." 

The  crowd  roared  and  the  crestfallen  hero 
(never-to-be)  retired  to  the  smoker. 

As  a  sample  of  Christian  strategy  the 
incident  below  is  cited. 

In  the  early  80's  Idaho  being  yet  a  Terri- 
tory, the  Utah  Mission  extended  as  far  as  the 
fortieth  parallel,  excluding  Fort  Hall  Reser- 
vation. This  took  in  that  portion  of  Idaho 
which  includes  Oxford  and  Albion,  where  the 
Utah  Mission  had  schools  and  preaching 
points.  Albion  more  especially  was  quite  a 
frontier  town,  and  the  Federal  court  had 
jurisdiction;  Judge  CM.  Hays  was  on  the 
bench. 


158    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

A  murder  trial  had  been  engaging  the  at- 
tention of  the  court  and  district  when  Satur- 
day evening  came;  with  the  overland  stage 
came  the  superintendent  of  Utah  Mission. 
There  was  as  yet  no  church  building  and  the 
only  place  available  for  public  gatherings 
was  the  town  hall  where  the  sessions  of  the 
court  were  being  held.  Mr.  Iliff  had  a  quiet 
talk  with  the  amiable  judge,  telling  him  why 
he  was  present;  it  "pleased  the  court"  to  say 
that  sympathetic  cooperation  would  be  made 
in  the  proceedings  of  the  next  day.  When 
the  time  for  adjournment  came,  Judge  Hays 
simply  said,  "Court  is  adjourned  till  to- 
morrow [Sunday]  at  ten  o'clock."  When 
that  hour  arrived  every  juror  and  attorney 
was  in  his  expectant  place  and  the  hall  was 
packed  by  interested  onlookers. 

Without  waiting  for  the  clerk  to  read  the 
journal,  Judge  Hays  quietly  remarked, 
"We  will  adjourn  long  enough  to  hear  a 
sermon  from  the  Rev.  Mr.  IlifT,  who  is  pres- 
ent." 

After  thanking  the  court  the  preacher  be- 
gan by  saying:  "Gentlemen,  during  the  week 


CHARACTERISTICS  159 

you  have  been  having  law  galore,  now  I  am 
going  to  give  you  the  gospel."  Speaking  of 
it  more  than  thirty  years  afterward,  he  re- 
membered that  he  gave  them  the  gospel 
"good  and  plenty" — using  his  own  remark. 
Once  when  asked  by  one  of  his  mission- 
aries what  was  the  secret  of  his  cheerfulness, 
he  replied,  "The  ability  to  shout  when  one  is 
in  the  hole."  Some  of  us  who  knew  him  most 
intimately  have  seen  the  time  when  the  dark- 
ness of  that  hole  was  not  only  Cimmerian 
but  intensely  sulphurous;  so  Stygian  and 
Hadean  that  he  was  very  solemn,  but  in  an 
instant  he  could  shout,  for  he  knew  that  no 
hue  or  dye  or  grade  of  darkness  could  be 
eternal  to  them  who  have  the  inner  light 
which  itself  constitutes  a  joyful  faith.  His 
manner  in  this  respect  is  exemplified  in  the 
case  of  Charles  Brown,  an  employee  of  the 
Union  Pacific  Railway.  He  was  a  passenger 
conductor  on  one  of  the  mountain  divisions 
of  that  system  of  transcontinental  lines.  It 
was  a  foggy  morning  in  winter.  His  train 
was  passing  another  at  a  short  sidetrack,  and 
the  necessary  switching  was  being  done. 


160    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

A  trainman  said,  "The  fog  makes  your 
light  dim  this  morning,  Charlie." 

"Yes,"  replied  the  conductor,  "but  I  have 
a  brighter  one  inside  of  me." 

A  minute  or  two  later,  slipping  on  the  icy 
ground,  he  fell  under  the  moving  car  and 
was  instantly  killed.  His  brighter  light  was 
needed  for  the  darkness  of  death. 

In  the  days  when  Utah  and  her  people 
were  being  taught  the  meaning  of  the  will 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States;  in  the 
days  when  short-visioned  friends  and  co- 
workers could  not  understand  and  would  not 
forbear  criticism;  when  his  plans  for  the 
future  seemed  futile;  when  at  times  he 
lacked  fullest  sympathy  of  certain  members 
of  the  Missionary  Board;  when  there  was 
found  not  only  incompetency  in  some  of  his 
men,  and  in  rare  cases  serious  charges  of 
immorality  must  be  faced;  when  tongues  of 
calumny  did  not  spare  the  character  of  this 
valorous  leader,  he  lifted  his  chin,  clenched 
his  strong  hands,  shook  his  abundant  locks, 
perpendicularized  every  curve  out  of  his 
spine,  and  with  steady  tread  marched  ahead 


CHARACTERISTICS  161 

trusting  God  and  his  other  steadfast  friends 
to  care  for  his  reputation.  He  stood,  grow- 
ing always  till  the  perfect  day. 

Three  times  the  somber  wing  of  death 
carried  to  the  Iliff  home  the  weighty  burden 
of  sorrow.  Three  times  he  and  his  philo- 
sophic wife  bared  their  faces  to  meet  the 
force  of  the  on-coming  and  relentless  bliz- 
zard; and  three  times  they  emerged  chas- 
tened, sweetened,  and  unscathed,  showing 

"...  a  faith  that  will  not  shrink, 
Though  pressed  by  every  foe, 
That  will  not  tremble  on  the  brink 
Of  any  earthly  woe! 

"That  will  not  murmur  nor  complain 
Beneath  the  chastening  rod, 
But,  in  the  hour  of  grief  or  pain, 
Will  lean  upon  its  God." 

At  no  time  in  all  his  career  in  the  moun- 
tains were  the  children  of  the  parsonages 
displeased  to  have  it  known  that  the  superin- 
tendent was  coming.  His  perennial  joyous- 
ness  was  infectious  and  effectual.  His  was 
that  undimmed  light  that  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  poured  itself  unstinted 


162    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

into  the  often  isolated  homes  of  th^  preachers 
of  that  inland  Utah  empire  almost  as  large 
as  the  States  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York  combined. 

Equally  at  home  astride  a  mule  or  buck- 
ing broncho,  enduring  the  narrower  incon- 
venience of  the  crowded  stagecoach,  in  the 
Pullman,  or  afoot  over  some  precipitous 
mountain  trail,  he  was  ever  the  unostenta- 
tious yet  commanding  center  of  attraction. 

Not  only  was  Dr.  Iliff  fascinatingly 
strong  on  social  lines,  it  was  his  ability  in 
the  pulpit  and  on  the  platform  that  made 
him  the  compeller  of  audiences.  Attractive 
in  personal  appearance  and  pleasing  in  de- 
meanor, he  immediately  placed  his  hearers 
at  complete  ease  while  he  held  them  from  his 
first  utterance.  In  stature  neither  short  nor 
tall,  and  of  sturdy  and  rather  heavy  build 
for  his  height,  specially  in  the  days  of  his 
prime,  he  was  the  picture  of  perfect  man- 
hood. His  tousled  hair  flying  and  fre- 
quently thrust  through  with  his  fingers,  he 
employed  his  own  native  and  unstudied 
IlifBan  gestures,   all  of  which   added  im- 


CHARACTERISTICS  163 

mensely  to  the  attractive  picturesqueness 
which  always  thrilled  a  crowd;  while  from 
the  hot  cauldron  of  his  whole  being — body, 
mind,  and  soul — his  eloquence  bubbled, 
effervesced,  and  finally  overflowed  the 
hearers  until  they  were  completely  en  rap- 
port with  him  and  whatever  cause  he  repre- 
sented. 

His  crowning  delight  was  the  preaching 
of  the  Word;  although  a  source  of  mighty 
joy  was  the  patriotic  work  to  which  he 
steadily  held,  even  when  his  once  powerful 
physique  could  no  longer  well  bear  the  ever- 
delightful  burden. 

His  lectures,  aside  from  "Egypt,  Sinai, 
and  the  Holy  Land,"  were  chiefly  "What  an 
Ohio  Boy  Saw  in  the  Army,  or  the  Sunny 
Side  of  a  Soldier's  Life,"  and  "Mor- 
monism,  a  Menace  to  the  Nation."  In  this 
latter  he  always  distinguished  between  the 
individual  and  the  system,  and  the  fact  re- 
mains that  he  held  and  still  holds  among  the 
Latter-day  Saints  many,  many  sincere  and 
firm  friends. 

His  sermons  even  on  dedicatory  occasions 


164    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

were  always  of  the  deeply  spiritual  sort 
which  captivated,  held,  and  sometimes  con- 
verted his  hearers. 

This  masterful  quality,  native  and  im- 
proved upon,  made  him  the  success  he  was 
in  times  and  in  places  where  purse-strings 
were  tangled  and  tightly  tied.  This  imagi- 
nary purse-string  is  the  human  heart  and 
mind  which  he  would  always  unlock.  He 
was  an  advocate  before  a  jury;  he  won  his 
people  before  he  asked  for  the  verdict.  In 
this  he  ranked  with  Benoni  I.  Ives  and  the 
Chaplain-Bishop  McCabe. 

Like  an  ocean  liner  rigged  and  pro- 
visioned for  a  voyage  of  indefinite  length, 
but  whose  final  port  was  certain,  he  sailed 
stern-faced  sometimes,  but  always  steadily 
in  one  direction  through  many  a  billowy 
sea,  meeting  wave  on  wave  of  human  op- 
position, threatened  by  underfilled  areas  of 
spiteful  and  seditious  subcraft;  but  he 
proudly,  yet  not  boastingly  overrode  it  all 
while  knowing  the  dangers,  as  did  Farragut 
in  Mobile  Bay.  Thus  to  the  end  he  outrode 
every  gale  and  made  the  harbor  of  victory. 


XI 

MEMORIAL  SERVICES 


Apostrophe  to  Immortality 

(A  portion  of  address  delivered  by  Dr.  Iliff  on 
the  occasion  of  the  death  of  his  friend  Matthew 
H.  Walker.) 

Immortality!  We  bow  before  the  very  word — 
immortality!  Before  it  reason  staggers,  calcula- 
tion reclines  her  tired  head,  and  imagination  folds 
her  weary  pinions. 

Immortality!  It  puts  a  deathless  crown  upon 
every  child  of  earth.  It  says  to  every  uncrowned 
king,  "Live  forever — crowned  for  a  deathless  des- 
tiny!" Who  can  measure  the  magnitude  that 
such  a  thought  throws  around  all  conditions  of 
life?  O,  Christianity,  what  is  thy  one  great  mis- 
sion?— to  go,  and  wherever  there  is  a  heavy  heart 
or  troubled  soul,  or  a  home  in  darkness,  or  a 
sepulcher  of  night,  and  plant  the  beatific  hope 
of  life  again,  of  life  above,  life  forevermore.  For 
Jesus  Christ  hath  abolished  death  and  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel. 


CHAPTER  XI 

MEMORIAL  SERVICES 

Many  memorial  services  were  held 
throughout  the  Rocky  Mountain  country, 
but  only  a  very  few  of  them  can  find  their 
way  into  this  narrative.  The  most  impor- 
tant were  those  at  Salt  Lake  City,  where  his 
honored  dust  rests,  and  at  Missoula,  Mon- 
tana, the  scenes  of  his  first  missionary 
achievements.  The  Salt  Lake  Tribune  of 
February  27  contained  the  following: 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Iliff  Laid  at  Final  Rest 
Maxwell-McKean  Post,  G.  A.  R.,  Mount 
Moriah  Lodge  No.  2,  A.  F.  and  A.  M.,  and 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  clergy  and  people 
joined  yesterday  at  2  p.  m.  in  honoring  the 
memory  of  Dr.  T.  C.  Iliff,  former  Salt  Lake 
pastor  and  superintendent  of  Methodist 
Missions  in  Utah,  who  died  Friday  in  Den- 
ver, Colorado.  Dr.  John  J.  Lace,  superin- 
tendent of  the  Methodist  Missions  in  this 
167 


168    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

State,  had  charge  of  the  funeral  services, 
which  were  held  in  the  First  Methodist 
Church. 

The  chief  address  was  made  by  Dr.  James 

D.  Gillilan,  superintendent  of  the  Boise 
District  of  the  Idaho  Conference  and  former 
associate  of  Dr.  Iliff  in  Utah.     The  Rev. 

E.  E.  Mork,  in  charge  of  the  Methodist 
Scandinavian  Missions  in  Utah,  spoke,  and 
H.  G.  Rollins,  commander  of  the  Maxwell- 
McKean  Post,  talked  about  Dr.  Iliff's  serv- 
ice to  his  country  in  Civil  War  days. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  J.  H.  N. 
Williams,  pastor  of  the  First  Methodist 
Church.  Dr.  Josiah  McClain,  former  super- 
intendent of  the  Presbyterian  Missions  in 
Utah  and  an  associate  of  Dr.  Iliff,  read  the 
twenty-third  psalm;  and  the  Rev.  F.  W. 
Bross  read  the  New  Testament  lesson. 

A  quartet,  consisting  of  Mrs.  A.  S. 
Peters,  Mrs.  E.  G.  Caster,  A.  Eberhardt, 
and  Paul  Armstrong  sang  "Faith  of  our 
Fathers,"  and  the  congregation  joined  in 
the  rendering  of  "O  God,  Our  Help  in 
Ages  Past." 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       169 

At  the  grave  in  Mount  Olivet  the  Masonic 
Lodge  and  the  G.  A.  R.  Post  held  ritualistic 
services.    The  entire  family  was  present. 

This  funeral  was  conducted  in  one  of  the 
fiercest  snowstorms  the  springtime  ever  per- 
mits in  the  Salt  Lake  valley. 

The  pallbearers  included  men  of  high 
rank  and  calling,  and  among  these  was 
Simon  Bamberger,  the  governor  of  the  State. 

Address  by  J.  D.  Gillilan 

Thomas  Corwin  Iliff  was  a  man  who  faced 
wrong  and  any  other  opposition  in  the  open. 
He  never  fought  a  stroke  in  the  dark,  nor 
stabbed  any  enemy  in  the  back.  He  was  an 
Achilles  who  never  at  any  moment  sulked 
in  his  tent. 

His  was  an  aggressive  nature,  so  much  so 
that  he  did  not  belong  to  the  rear  ranks.  He 
was  a  Nestor — a  pattern  of  that  heroic 
Homeric  knight  whose  stentorian  voice  could 
always  arouse  the  "large-souled  Greeks." 

Born  in  Ohio  of  German  and  Irish  an- 
cestry, he  became,  because  of  that  strong 
admixture,  a  high  type  of  that  newer  citizen 


170    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

of  the  world — the  American.  As  such  he 
stood  in  private  as  in  public  for  the  Golden 
Rule  of  democracy,  namely,  the  procuring, 
defending  and  making  sure  and  secure  the 
same  political,  religious,  social,  and  personal 
privileges  for  others  that  he  demanded  for 
himself  and  his  own.  His  heart  was  so 
great  the  world  did  not  fill  it;  he  had  room 
enough  for  heaven  too. 

He  gloried  in  conflict  for  the  joy  of 
even  the  hope  of  final  victory.  His  oppos- 
ings  were  always  of  principle  and  never  of 
a  personal  nature.  If  he  knew  how  to  be 
vindictive,  none  of  his  nearest  associates  ever 
discovered  the  fact.  He  never  practiced 
hating  his  fellows,  and  therefore  did  not 
know  how  to  do  it. 

Because  of  the  state  of  unrest  between 
the  sections  of  our  divided  republic  he  be- 
came an  early  participant  in  the  Civil  War. 
Enlisting  in  1861,  he  served  until  the  sur- 
render of  Lee  at  Appomattox,  in  the  Ninth 
Ohio  Volunteer  Infantry,  Co.  A.  In  later 
life  his  standing  among  his  comrades  of  the 
old  army  was  so  eminent  he  was  elected  to 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       171 

the  position  of  grand  chaplain,  and  served 
with  distinction. 

There  being  a  Great  West  to  bring  into 
cultivation,  he  came  here  so  soon  as  he  could 
after  fully  preparing  for  life's  activities  in 
the  Ohio  University  at  Athens,  Ohio,  the 
Alma  Mater  of  three  of  his  other  comrades, 
C.  C.  McCabe,  D.  H.  Moore,  and  Earl 
Cranston.  Into  our  cis-Missouri  domain  with 
his  youthful  bride,  Miss  Mary  Robinson,  of 
Ohio,  he  came  in  the  early  70's;  his  advent 
marked  an  epoch  in  things  religiously  and 
patriotically  progressive.  This  was  specially 
true  of  his  life  in  Montana,  where  he  faith- 
fully blazed  the  way  and  made  a  path  plain 
for  the  myriads  of  oncoming  hosts  whose 
sturdy  and  peace-loving  descendants 
worthily  represent  all  the  virtues  of  such  an- 
cestors. 

He  never  was  found  remaining  long  in 
a  spot  where  there  was  nothing  to  do.  If 
by  chance  he  discovered  such,  he  immediately 
and  hurriedly  decamped  or  started  some- 
thing. 

In  1872  he  became  a  member  of  the  Rocky 


172    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Mountain  Conference  of  Methodism  at  its 
organization  by  Bishop  R.  S.  Foster,  who 
was  presiding  over  his  first  session  in  Salt 
Lake  City.  This  mighty  ecclesiastical  terri- 
tory embraced  Utah,  Montana,  the  greater 
portion  of  Idaho,  as  well  as  western  Wyo- 
ming. Remaining  in  Montana  four  stren- 
uous years  longer,  he  became  in  1876  a 
member  of  the  Utah  Conference  and  was  ap- 
pointed presiding  elder  of  Beaver  District. 
He,  together  with  the  honored  late  Judge 
Jacob  S.  Boreman,  represented  Utah  Meth- 
odism in  the  General  Conference  of  1880, 
taking  part  in  the  election  of  Bishop  Henry 
White  Warren,  that  distinguished  astrono- 
mer, poet,  and  Christian  gentleman.  At 
this  session  of  the  General  Conference  Utah 
became  a  mission  of  the  church,  and  Gus- 
tavus  M.  Peirce  was  appointed  superin- 
tendent. Mr.  Iliff  then  transferred  to 
Illinois  and  was  made  pastor  in  the  city  of 
Bloomington.  Afterward  he  toured  Egypt 
and  the  Holy  Land  with  his  old-time  friend, 
Bishop  S.  M.  Merrill. 

In    1882    Mr.    Iliff    was    appointed    by 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       173 

Bishop  Hurst  superintendent  of  the  Utah 
work,  which  position  he  held  until  1900. 
After  this  date  he  was  made  assistant  secre- 
tary of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  and 
Church  Extension,  until  1909;  during  all 
this  time  and  until  the  setting  of  his  earthly- 
sun  he  was  busy  doing  the  sort  of  work 
affording  him  chief  est  pleasure,  that  of  rais- 
ing church  finances  and  dedicating  new 
edifices,  which  he  did  from  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia and  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the 
Gulf.  In  this  sort  of  activity  he  may  have 
had  a  peer,  but  surely  never  a  superior  in 
handling  hard  financial  situations  conse- 
quent upon  and  in  connection  with  the  erec- 
tion of  new  church  buildings.  The  next  to 
the  last  act  in  that  line  was  the  completion 
of  the  perfect  temple  of  victory  upon  what 
seemed  to  the  most  sanguine  of  us  broken, 
scattered,  and  shattered  pilasters  and  foun- 
dation stones  at  Cascade,  Idaho. 

His  Alma  Mater  and  De  Pauw  Uni- 
versity on  the  same  day  conferred  on  him 
the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. 
He  wore  it  harmlessly. 


174    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Dr.  Iliff  was  never  a  plotting  politician 
or  a  partisan  demagogue.  He  was  an 
American  and  a  Christian.  In  the  so-called 
"dark  days"  in  this  State,  and  when  things 
politico-social  were  aboil  in  Utah,  he  was 
called  upon  to  do  his  part  at  the  behest  of 
Congress,  and  he  hesitated  not  a  moment. 
A  man  of  mark,  he  was  an  easy  target,  yet 
no  shaft  of  any  opposer  ever  found  a  joint 
in  his  harness.  Exposed  as  he  was  to  every 
sort  of  frontier  social  danger  and  political 
temptation,  he  maintained  his  whiteness  of 
soul  until  his  opponents  praised  him;  for, 
like  the  diamond,  the  more  hardly  pressed 
the  brighter  he  shone. 

As  an  administrator  his  church  work  grew 
from  seven  actual  appointments  in  1882  to 
three  districts  with  twenty-seven  appoint- 
ments in  1899;  and  from  a  membership  of 
one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  to  one  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  forty-nine,  not  reck- 
oning them  in  preparatory  membership. 
Church  edifices  increased  from  six  to  twenty- 
five  in  1899. 

Personally,  we  traveled,  camped,  talked, 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       175 

preached,  and  otherwise  labored  together  for 
fifteen  years,  and  while  there  were  at  widely 
separated  intervals  some  firm  words  between 
us,  there  was  at  no  time  a  harsh  or  bitter 
one.  As  to-day  I  look  into  his  placid  face 
I  find  memory  bringing  no  unpleasant  recol- 
lection. 

Too  modest,  even  at  the  urgent  request 
of  his  many  friends  to  do  so,  he  would  write 
nothing  of  himself.  Some  able  biographer 
ought  soon  to  chronicle  his  work  so  far  as 
possible,  and  thus  fittingly  and  lastingly  to 
stereotype  his  life  in  our  literature.  For 
no  man  has  preached  more  times,  dedicated 
more  churches,  made  more  friends,  lived  in 
a  more  conciliatory  manner,  and  proceeded 
more  uncompromisingly  than  has  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Corwin  Iliff,  whose  four  (of  their 
seven)  children  with  their  mother  remain  to 
be  yet  a  further  continuation  of  blessings  to 
earth. 

Editorial  from  Salt  Lake  Tribune 

The  death  of  Dr.  T.  C.  Iliff,  which  oc- 
curred in  Denver,  has  removed  from  all 


176    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

earthly  activity  and  care  one  of  the  ablest 
and  best-loved  champions  of  right  in  this 
section  of  the  United  States,  and  his  work 
will  be  long  remembered  by  those  among 
whom  he  labored  in  the  missionary  field  of 
Utah  and  Idaho.  He  was  a  militant  Meth- 
odist, and  preached  the  Word  with  all  the 
force  and  vigor  at  his  command.  Yet  he 
was  a  man  of  infinite  patience,  and  of  the 
most  kindly  feeling  and  consideration  to 
the  superlative  degree. 

A  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  he  shortly 
after  its  close  began  the  work  of  a  mission- 
ary, for  which  he  was  well  qualified  and  in 
which  he  was  eminently  successful. 

News  of  Dr.  IlifFs  death  will  be  received 
with  something  of  a  shock  by  the  people  of 
all  denominations  in  Salt  Lake  who  had  the 
honor  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
truly  great  man,  for  he  was  robust  in  spite 
of  his  years,  and  it  had  been  fondly  hoped 
that  he  would  be  spared  for  a  long  time  to 
come.  And  now  that  the  Maker  of  all  things 
has  summoned  this  tireless  worker  to  his 
reward,  we  bow  our  heads  in  humble  submis- 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       177 

sion  and  bid  farewell  to  a  fearless  Chris- 
tian missionary,  a  patriotic  citizen,  a  kind 
husband,  and  loving  father. 

At  Missoula 

Impressive  services  in  honor  of  Dr. 
Thomas  C.  Iliff,  the  first  pastor,  and  the 
members  of  the  congregation  now  serving 
their  country  in  the  field  were  held  at  the 
First  Methodist  Church  yesterday. 

The  memorial  services  for  Dr.  Iliff,  who 
founded  the  church  here  in  1871,  were  held 
in  the  morning,  with  the  Rev.  W.  W.  Van 
Orsdel,  the  Rev.  Jacob  Mills,  Mrs.  Emma 
C.  Dickinson,  and  the  Rev.  Charles  D. 
Crouch  speaking  in  eulogy  of  the  pioneer 
preacher. 

Dr.  Van  Orsdel  and  Mrs.  Dickinson  gave 
the  principal  talks  at  the  morning  meeting. 
The  latter  is  the  only  surviving  member  of 
the  little  congregation  which  heard  Dr. 
Iliff  s  first  sermon  here.  "Brother  Van," 
as  Dr.  Van  Orsdel  is  known,  was  Dr.  Iliff's 
companion  in  pioneer  missionary  work  in 
Montana  Territory. 


178    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

Mrs.  Dickinson  came  to  Missoula  two 
years  before  the  Methodist  Church  was 
organized.  She  spoke  briefly  of  those  early 
days  and  of  the  organization  of  the  church. 

"There  was  neither  church  nor  school- 
house  in  Missoula  when  Brother  Iliff  came 
here,"  she  said.  "The  courthouse  was  the 
only  place  then  for  gatherings  of  any  kind. 
Brother  Comfort  had  preached  there  in 
1869,  the  first  Protestant  preacher  in  this 
part  of  the  territory. 

"Brother  Iliff  and  his  bride  arrived  in 
1871,  and  immediately  arrangements  were 
made  for  the  building  of  a  church.  Mr. 
Iliff  himself  donned  overalls  that  summer 
and  worked  with  the  other  laborers  to  erect 
the  building. 

"Mrs.  Dana  and  I  were  the  only  mem- 
bers of  the  Methodist  Church  here  at  that 
time,  and  when  the  church  was  organized 
there  were  seven  charter  members. 

"In  the  fall  of  '71  Mr.  Dickinson  and  I 
were  married  by  Brother  Iliff.  Ours  was 
the  first  marriage  by  a  Protestant  preacher 
in  Montana,  west  of  Deer  Lodge. 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       179 

"Brother  IlifT  and  his  wife  sang  them- 
selves into  the  hearts  of  the  people.  They 
brought  the  Moody  hymns,  then  new,  with 
them,  and  used  to  sit  on  their  porch  and 
sing  them,  to  the  delight  of  us  all.  In  our 
social  gatherings  he  was  always  the  one  who 
made  the  most  fun.  He  was  a  well-loved 
man." 

Dr.  Jacob  Mills,  who  came  to  Montana 
ten  years  after  Dr.  Iliff,  told  of  his  experi- 
ences with  the  pioneer,  and  testified  to  the 
power  of  his  preaching  and  the  purity  of  his 
gospel.  Dr.  Crouch,  pastor  of  the  church, 
added  his  tribute,  remarking  that  Dr.  Iliff 
was  the  first  Protestant  preacher  he  ever 
heard  and  that  the  influence  of  his  preach- 
ing changed  his  life. 

Tribute  from  W.  W.  Van  Orsdel 

Nearly  fifty  years  have  passed  since  Dr. 
Iliff  came  to  this  then  new  frontier  and 
braved  the  hardships  in  a  most  heroic  man- 
ner. He  never  faltered;  he  was  always 
ready,  no  matter  how  difficult  the  task.    Is 


180    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

there  a  chance  to  do  good  and  save  souls? 
This  to  him  was  paramount  to  all  else.  He, 
under  God,  was  a  great  leader,  not  only  of 
the  Methodists,  but  to  all  Christendom. 

During  his  ministry,  because  of  his 
ability  in  raising  funds,  he  either  dedicated 
or  assisted  in  dedicating  over  five  hundred 
churches  and  raised  over  three  million  dol- 
lars for  that  purpose. 

In  the  early  history  of  the  Territory, 
before  railroads,  we  made  long  journeys  to- 
gether, sometimes  by  stagecoach.  At  differ- 
ent times  we  took  our  lives  in  our  hands, 
as  it  were,  in  crossing  rivers  and  dangerous 
mountain  streams,  and  sometimes  amidst 
hostile  Indians  were  often  the  first  to  hold 
Christian  service  in  some  frontier  settle- 
ment. 

Dr.  Iliff  was  a  man  full  of  faith  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Of  him  it  may  be  said  as 
David  said  of  Abner,  "Know  ye  not  that 
there  is  a  prince  and  a  great  man  fallen  this 
day  in  Israel?"  David  followed  the  bier 
and  wept,  and  all  the  people  wept  at  the 
grave  of  Abner  because  of  their  great  love 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES       181 

for  him.  So  is  this  true  of  our  own  departed 
brother. 

A  most  intimate  acquaintance  was  formed 
by  the  deceased  and  the  writer  forty-five 
years  ago.  This  was  strengthened  and  made 
more  enduring  through  all  these  years,  and 
was  like  unto  that  of  David  and  Jonathan. 

There  is  no  friendship  so  endearing  as 
Christian  friendship,  and  especially  that 
which  grows  out  of  Christian  activity  along 
the  new  frontier  of  the  Rocky  Mountain 
country. 

One  of  our  favorite  hymns  was: 

"My  latest  sun  is  sinking  fast, 
My  race  is  nearly  run ; 
My  strongest  trials  now  are  past, 
My  triumph  is  begun." 

'Tis  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  this  was 
his  sentiment  from  the  fact  that  he  had  lived 
and  preached  the  pure  gospel  of  Christ. 

He  has  reached  that  sun-bright  clime; 
That  life  is  more  real  than  this.  This  brings 
to  us  the  reality  of  that  hymn  we  have  so 
often  sung. 


182    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

"Over  and  over;  yes,  deeper  and  deeper, 
My  heart  is  pierced  through  with  life's  sorrow 

and  cry, 
But  the  tears  of  the  sower  and  the  songs  of  the 

reaper 
Shall  mingle  together  in  joy,  by  and  by." 

And  which  is  further  emphasized  by 
"Palms  of  victory,  palms  of  glory  you  shall 
wear." 

O!  our  dear  departed  brother,  whom  we 
loved  so  well,  thou  art  not  dead,  just  gone 
before;  safe  in  the  paradise  of  God.  If 
faithful  to  him,  we  shall  see  thee  again  in 
that  beautiful  home  over  there,  where  the 
long,  dark  night  and  the  toil-wearying  day 
never  tarnish  the  bright  golden  plain,  for 
thou  hast  taken  thy  place  with  the  blood- 
washed  victors. 

Yes,  we  shall  roam  together  again  in 
Elysian  fields  of  glory.  How  we  shall  all 
miss  thee!  But  heaven  is  nearer  and  Christ 
is  dearer  than  ever  before.  May  thy  saintly 
mantle  rest  not  only  upon  the  family,  but 
upon  the  whole  church. 

Yes,  to  thee  the  gates  have  opened  wide. 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES      183 

The  gates  of  the  "poor  in  spirit,"  "they  that 
mourn,"  "the  meek,"  "they  which  hunger 
after  righteousness,"  "the  pure  in  heart," 
"the  peacemakers" — all  are  blessed  gates, 
and  at  thy  approach  they  all  opened  wide 
to  let  thee  in,  and  thou  didst  go  sweeping 
through,  all  washed  in  Jesus'  blood. 

"Servant  of  God,  well  done; 

Thy  glorious  warfare's  past; 
The  battle's  fought,  the  race  is  won, 
And  thou  art  crowned  at  last." 


184    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

OLD  GLORY  IN  FRANCE 

Dedicated  by  the  Author  to  Dr.  Iliff 

Old  Glory  in  France! 

What  a  mighty  advance 

This  leader  of  liberty  takes ! 

It  strides  over  seas 

To  the  nations  whose  knees 

Are  bowed  to  the  God  of  the  right 

Day  and  night  while  they  fight ; 

And  the  throne  of  crowned  infamy 

Shakes  to  its  base  at  the  sight. 

Old  Glory  in  France! 
At  the  front,  in  advance, 
Waving  out  the  glad  word 
That  the  "flag  of  the  free" 
From  the  "home  of  the  brave," 
Crosses  ocean's  wide  wave 
A  redeemer  to  be ! 
For  the  peace  of  the  world 
Is  Old  Glory  unfurled, 
And  forever  nailed  fast 
To  the  head  of  the  mast! 


MEMORIAL  SERVICES      185 

Old  Glory  in  France! 

How  the  children  will  dance 

In  Lafayette's  land 

Where  the  undaunted  stand 

By  their  tricolor  true, 

And  our  Red,  White  and  Blue, 

In  blended  communion, 

A  sanctified  union! 

The  mother  will  shout  in  exuberant  joy 

For  this  unified  aegis  protecting  her  boy. 

Thus  we  send  France  our  love 
Which  has  never  grown  cold; 
We  send  her  our  gold, 
We  send  her  our  sons : 
But  we  send  her  Old  Glory 
To  float  o'er  her  guns. 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  I 

It  is  the  fashion  of  Gentile  writers  to 
sneer  at  Mormon  converts  as  belonging  to 
the  "lower  classes."     So  they  did.     So  did 
a  certain  group  of  fishermen  collected  on 
the  shores  of  Lake  Tiberias  nineteen  cen- 
turies ago.    The  slur  has  this  much  of  justice, 
that  few  persons  of  education,  few  persons 
even  who  had  what  might  be  called  the  edu- 
cational habit  of  mind,  were  gathered  in  by 
the    zealous    missionaries    of    the    Mormon 
Zion.     But  neither  did  these  missionaries 
appeal  to  paupers,  criminals,  nor  n'er-do- 
wells.    They  wanted  sturdy  farmers,  skilled 
mechanics,  faithful  laborers — and  these  they 
secured,    and    with    them    occasionally    a 
family   or   an   individual   of  high   worldly 
standard.     Charles  Dickens,  who  visited  a 
shipload  of  Mormon  emigrants  on  the  eve 
of   their   departure,   pronounced   them   the 
cream  of  England  of  their  class.    With  all 
due  allowance   for  Dickens's   tendency  to 
189 


190    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

exaggerate,  this  is  high  praise. — Brigham 
Young  and  His  Mormon  Kingdom,  pp.  253, 
ct  seq. 

APPENDIX  II 

The  political  control  of  the  hierarchy  is 
so  absolute  that  a  Mormon  official  has  been 
reduced  to  the  ranks  for  circulating  at  a 
school  election  a  different  ticket  from  the 
one  favored  by  his  church  superiors ;  and  at 
Washington  an  Apostle  sits  in  the  Senate  as 
ambassador  of  the  polygamous  kingdom — 
an  ambassador  who  has  a  highly  important 
vote  in  the  Senate  of  the  republic  to  which 
he  is  accredited. — Brigham  Young  and  His 
Mormon  Kingdom,  p.  390. 

APPENDIX  III 

The  Anti-Polygamy  Manifesto 

To  Whom  it  May  Concern:  Press  dis- 
patches having  been  sent  for  political  pur- 
poses from  Salt  Lake  City,  which  have  been 
widely  published,  to  the  effect  that  the  Utah 
Commission  in  their  recent  report  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  allege  that  plural 


APPENDICES  191 

marriages  are  still  being  solemnized,  and 
that  forty  or  more  of  such  marriages  have 
been  contracted  in  Utah  since  last  June,  or 
during  the  past  year ;  also  that  in  public  dis- 
courses the  leaders  of  the  church  have 
taught,  encouraged,  and  urged  the  continu- 
ance of  the  practice  of  polygamy; 

I  therefore,  as  President  of  the  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints,  do 
hereby,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  declare 
that  these  charges  are  false.  We  are  not 
teaching  polygamy,  or  plural  marriage,  nor 
permitting  any  person  to  enter  into  its  prac- 
tice, and  I  deny  that  either  forty  or  any  other 
number  of  plural  marriages  have  during 
that  period  been  solemnized  in  our  temple 
or  in  any  other  place  in  the  Territory. 

One  case  has  been  reported  in  which  the 
parties  alleged  that  the  marriage  was  per- 
formed in  the  Endowment  House  in  Salt 
Lake  City  in  the  spring  of  1889,  but  I  have 
not  been  able  to  learn  who  performed  the 
ceremony ;  whatever  was  done  in  this  manner 
was  without  my  knowledge.  In  consequence 
of  this  alleged  occurrence,  the  Endowment 


192    THOMAS  CORWIN  ILIFF 

House  was  by  my  instruction  taken  down 
without  delay. 

Inasmuch  as  laws  have  been  enacted  by 
Congress  forbidding  plural  marriage,  which 
laws  have  been  pronounced  constitutional  by 
the  court  of  last  resort,  I  hereby  declare  my 
intention  to  submit  to  those  laws  and  to  use 
my  influence  with  the  members  of  the  church 
over  which  I  preside  to  have  them  do  like- 
wise. 

There  is  nothing  in  my  teachings  to  the 
church  or  in  those  of  my  associates,  during 
the  time  specified,  which  can  reasonably  be 
construed  to  inculcate  or  encourage  polyg- 
amy, and  when  any  Elder  of  the  church  has 
used  language  which  appeared  to  convey 
any  such  teaching,  he  has  been  promptly 
reproved.  And  now  I  publicly  declare  that 
my  advice  to  the  Latter  Day  Saints  is  to 
refrain  from  contracting  any  marriage  for- 
bidden by  the  law  of  the  land. 

Wilfokd  Woodruff, 
President  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of 
Latter  Day  Saints. 

Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  Sept.  24,  1890. 


APPENDICES  193 

APPENDIX  IV 

When  the  Manifesto  of  1890  was  issued, 
forbidding  further  practice  of  plural  mar- 
riage (polygamy),  it  was  the  Mormon 
women  who  were  most  pained  and  most  re- 
sentful. But  here  and  there  was  one  who 
saw  deeper,  beyond  the  temporary  disrupt- 
ing of  home  ties  to  the  peace  and  confidence 
which  lay  ahead.  One  Apostle,  whose  first 
wife  was  of  this  caliber,  asked  her  what  she 
thought  of  it.  She  answered:  "Well,  E — , 
I've  always  thought  that  some  time  God 
would  get  as  tired  of  polygamy  as  I  am." 

That  woman  was  an  exception,  however. 
Even  now,  when  plural  marriage  has  been 
renewed  under  circumstances  of  secrecy  and 
deceit  that  would  ruin  the  most  righteous 
institution,  Mormon  women  resent  the  faint- 
est challenge  of  polygamous  faith  or  prac- 
tice; and  they  would  perjure  themselves  be- 
fore courts  and  investigating  committees 
to  clear  their  husbands,  even  at  the  cost 
of  bastardizing  their  children. — Brigham 
Young  and  His  Mormon  Empire,  p.  230. 


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